TikTok will not take action to remove or include a warning on a video on the social media platform of the waterbombing plane crash that killed three US firefighters because it does not violate the company’s community guidelines.

Captain Ian McBeth, first officer Paul Hudson and flight engineer Rick DeMorgan Jr were killed when their C-130 Hercules crashed on 23 January while fighting a fire in the Snowy Monaro region of New South Wales.

The video, from an Australian account, shows the C-130 dropping fire retardant before disappearing into the smoke, followed by a large explosion in the distance. It is accompanied by See You Again, the Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth song used in the action film Furious 7 to honour the franchise’s star, Paul Walker, who died before filming was complete.

The video is shown without any warning, and some users have reported seeing it in the app’s “for you” section. At the time of publication it had been viewed more than 180,000 times and had more than 13,600 likes.

The NSW Rural Fire Service said it was aware of the video, and passed all questions to NSW police. The force said the video would form part of its investigation into the crash: “Investigators are aware of a video circulating social media and it will form part of our coronial brief of evidence.”

TikTok said the video did not breach community guidelines but safety was a “top priority”.

“The safety and well-being of our users is a top priority,” it said. “As stated in our community guidelines, we do not allow content that is excessively gruesome or shocking.”

The community guidelines ban content that is “gratuitously shocking, sadistic, or excessively graphic” insofar as it comes to direct visual violence against humans or animals, but not regarding crashes or other accidents.

The guidelines have an exception for content that is deemed newsworthy or is raising awareness on an issue.

Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman-Grant, said such content should come with a warning.

“For platforms hosting videos or content that might be harmful or cause distress, best practice would include providing warnings or interstitials to protect users from involuntarily being exposed to disturbing, violent or damaging content,” she said.