Visual errors in China paragliding accident clip suggest AI use

"Yesterday, a paraglider named Liu Ge set a new world record for the altitude of a conscious human flight in the #Qilian Mountains," reads a Douyin post on May 25, 2025 written in simplified Chinese, referring to the cluster of peaks in northern China.

Footage in the post supposedly shows three clips from the accident -- an aerial view of the man followed by a closer angle apparently from a sports camera and finally visuals of the paraglider covered with ice and flying over clouds.

Image

Screenshot of the false Douyin post taken on June 4, 2025

Similar visuals surfaced on X and Facebook after Chinese media reported a paraglider named Peng Yujiang was carried away by a sudden updraft to an altitude of over 8,500 kilometres (5,200 miles) while training in the Qilian Mountains in Gansu Province on May 24.

Peng lost consciousness for a short time before he regained awareness and operated the paraglider back to the ground, according to an article from state-run broadcaster CCTV (archived link).

According to an incident report issued by the Gansu Province Aviation Sports Association, Peng was banned from flying for six months although authorities said his ground training did not require prior approval (archived link).

Multiple paragliding experts told AFP there have been previous cases of paragliders being carried up to dangerous heights.

"It is possible to get carried up to extreme altitudes, but it also happens to be very easily avoidable. This can only happen in cumulonimbus clouds, aka thunderstorms," said Emil Kaminski, safety officer at the Hong Kong Paragliding Association.

"Pilots who have been lifted to such dangerous heights have either intentionally flown into them OR inadvertently flown into them because not paying attention to weather OR due to poor training, poor understanding of the weather." 

"This is very rare (to be accidentally carried to such an altitude) but it is possible," Geoff Davison, a paragliding instructor at Fly Koh Larn in Thailand, separately said.

However, the circulating footage is not an accurate depiction of the incident.

A reverse image search using a keyframe found the first five seconds in the compilation matches a clip posted May 26 on Facebook that bears the watermark of Doubao AI, a ChatGPT-like conversational bot created by TikTok owner ByteDance (archived link).

The subsequent clips have inconsistent visuals, an AFP analysis found. The colour of the paraglider's helmet and the straps of the equipment are initially white but inexplicably turn black.

The man's legs are also depicted hanging out of the paraglider at first but is later shown as covered by an insulating cocoon.

Image

Screenshots showing the visual inconsistencies between the clips

Despite the meteoric progress in Generative AI, errors still show up in AI-generated content. These defects are the best way to recognise a fabricated image.

Multiple news organisations including Reuters, NBC News and ABC News said they took down footage of the incident from CCTV after they found signs of AI (archived here, here and here).