Air India crash: Why everyone’s blaming this eagle

After the tragic Air India crash in Ahmedabad, a familiar video is making the rounds online — again.

Transcript

00:00A lot of people online are now blaming this eagle for the Air India crash in Ahmedabad on June 12,

00:052025. Every time something terrible happens, that same eagle video from Odisha's Puri shows up on

00:11my feed again. FYI, the video is from April 2025. It shows an eagle flying through a thunderstorm

00:17carrying a flag from the Jagannath temple. Many said the flag looked like the Patitha Paban Bono

00:23which is believed to carry Lord Jagannath's blessing. Every day, temple priests climb the

00:27214 foot spire without any safety gear to change it in a sacred ritual. It said the flag always

00:34flutters against the wind, something many see as a sign from above. So when people saw an eagle

00:40flying with that flag through a storm, it struck a nerve. It went viral back then and ever since,

00:47it's become a go-to divine sign that people start sharing after every disaster. I first saw it pop

00:52up after the Pehalgaam terror attack, then again during Operation Sundoor. It appeared once more

00:57after the Mumbai local train incident and again following the stampede in Bangaluru. Even just

01:03last week after the death of 83-year-old Jagannath temple caretaker Jagannath Dixit, under mysterious

01:09circumstances, the eagle made another appearance on my feed, linked to Dixit's passing too. And now,

01:15with the Air India crash in Ahmedabad, it's back once more. Different captions, same claims that the

01:21eagle was a messenger of Lord Vishnu or a warning from the heavens or some kind of cosmic signal.

01:27People frame it however they want to suit the moment. All of this in a country with a 74.04%

01:34literacy rate. So the real question is, are we even thinking critically or just forwarding what feels

01:39good to believe?