AI images passed off as deadly Philippine boat disaster
- Published on February 3, 2026 at 03:35
- 2 min read
- By Ara Eugenio, AFP Philippines
Dozens of people died after a triple-decker vessel sank off southwestern Philippine waters in the early hours of January 26, 2026, but images of a partially submerged ferry that circulated online hours after the disaster are not authentic. The pictures were detected as generated using Google's AI tools, and do not accurately portray the incident.
"Another Sea Mishaps (sic) | Please pray for the missing crew and passengers," reads a Facebook post with more than 1,000 shares. "The boat MV Trisha Kerstin 3 sank in the sea off Basilan early this morning."
The featured images depict a passenger ferry tilted and partially submerged at sea with people floating nearby, with the first picture showing a vessel with a gaping hole in its hull.
Another image of a tilting ferry that is brightly lit was separately shared in more than 2,700 Facebook posts.
MV Trisha Kerstin 3 sank about five kilometres (three miles) east of Baluk-Baluk Island, part of the Basilan island chain off the Zamboanga Peninsula (archived link).
According to the Philippine Coast Guard, the ferry en route to Jolo Island issued a distress signal around 1:50 a.m., just over four hours after departing from the port of Zamboanga City on the southwestern tip of Mindanao (archived link).
The Philippine Coast Guard said at least 42 people were killed (archived link).
Video released by the Coast Guard shows survivors being plucked from the sea and receiving medical attention.
The images circulated widely on Facebook, with many users believing they depicted the actual ferry disaster.
"The hole is so big, no wonder why they drowned," one comment read. Another said: "This looks so terrifying."
However, the circulating images are not genuine.
Created with AI
AFP uploaded the images through Google's SynthID detector, a tool designed to identify AI-generated content, which returned with a "very high" degree of confidence that they were created using the company's AI tools (archived link).
The images also contain visual inconsistencies characteristic of AI-generated content.
In the first image, the vessel's name is misspelled as "Kerstin Trisha" instead of "MV Trisha Kerstin 3", and this label does not appear beneath the operator name "ALESON" in a photo of the vessel uploaded to global ship tracking intelligence site Marine Traffic (archived link).
The exact cause of the ferry's capsizing has yet to be determined.
AFP reached out to the Philippine Coast Guard for comment, but a response was not forthcoming.
Contrary to images depicting the ship as partially afloat, survivors reported that the ferry capsized immediately, and is understood to be lying at a depth of approximately 76 metres (250 feet) (archived here and here).
Divers flown in from Manila have arrived at the site to assist in recovery efforts, following the deployment of an unmanned vehicle to first pinpoint the location of the wreckage.
Videos of the disaster also show that it was pitch dark when survivors were pulled from the sea by rescuers.
AFP has previously debunked misinformation around the Basilan ferry incident.
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