The dangers of the social media disaster chasers

At 9.08am BST the plane took off from Ahmedabad airport bound for London Gatwick. The cockpit gave a mayday call. The Flight AI171 reached only 650ft before rapidly losing altitude. After 30 seconds, the plane crashed into a hostel for medical students.

While rolling news websites shared initial statements and reported on response teams sifting through the wreckage, social media was way ahead. At 10.31am, less than 90 minutes after the crash a journalist from an Indian news channel posted photographs on X of an unredacted flight manifest with the names, nationalities and passport numbers of most of the passengers. Three minutes later, the complete version was published by an Indian wire service.

By that moment, any fight for attention between the social media hive mind and on-the-ground news teams was over. Internet users quickly identified one of the British couples on the manifest and found their Instagram accounts. At 11.09am, a self-styled news account that claims to be powered by AI shared what is believed to be a final video of the pair taken as they waited to board. This was three hours before Ahmedabad’s police chief gave the BBC a first count of bodies recovered. Several UK media outlets described the couple as “named”, without saying by whom. A family member confirmed that Jamie and Fiongal Greenlaw-Meek were on the plane that afternoon.

Flight manifests contain highly sensitive information that becomes even more sensitive after a plane crash. They are vital in tracking down passengers, confirming identities and contacting families. It is not clear who took photos of the AI171 manifest or what judgments were made by the social media accounts that chose to circulate it.

The same goes for the video of the Greenlaw-Meeks, who were possibly being mourned by strangers before their friends. It is not a stretch to think that at least one loved one may have found out this way. Not by a quiet conversation or phone call, but above a post by Elon Musk and below one about the Club World Cup. You could call them disaster chasers, people less concerned about discretion, privacy and fairness than about being first to information – to knowing first. Many of those who shared this content may not have bad intentions, but some seem to.

Left to right: Navika, Shila and Mohini, who knew people on the Air India crash, in Wembley