Chinese paraglider’s death-defying thundercloud video may partly be fake

American digital security firm says first five seconds of Peng Yujiang’s video contain images generated by AI

A viral video of a Chinese paraglider claiming he was swept up into a thundercloud and dragged 8km into the sky could partly be fake.

Peng Yujiang, 55, a certified B-level paraglider, claimed in the video that he had a narrow escape after reaching an altitude of 8,598m without oxygen. The video was aired across China and distributed internationally by state broadcaster CCTV, and it quickly went viral.

The video supposedly showed a sudden surge of wind pulling up and trapping Mr Peng into a rapidly forming cumulonimbus cloud, leaving him to face icy conditions with his face exposed and without oxygen. The paraglider said that he suspected he briefly lost consciousness during his eventual descent.

But experts who examined the video, first shared on Douyin, China’s TikTok, on 24 May, said it likely employed artificial intelligence to fake some of the footage, Reuters reported.

The first five seconds of Mr Peng’s video contained images generated by AI, American digital security firm GetReal said, adding that it was “fairly confident” about its findings.

GetReal as well as other paragliders noted that the video showed Mr Peng’s legs initially dangling without the insulating cocoon shown later. In another concrete inconsistency, the paraglider’s helmet appeared white and then black.

“Nobody intentionally lets themselves be sucked into a thunderstorm cloud in an attempt to break a record, it is something that any sane paragliding pilot tries to avoid at all costs," said Jakub Havel, a Czech paraglider who runs XContest, a popular website for paragliders.

Mr Peng’s flight should not be considered a record, he said, pointing out that the Chinese paraglider had recorded and then deleted his flight log on XContest while his other flights remained on the site.

At least four paragliders interviewed by Reuters challenged Mr Peng’s claim that the flight had been an unavoidable accident.

The experts, however, said it was possible that the paraglider actually went up to an altitude of 8,589m and survived.

Pilots said there were reasons to question Mr Peng’s flight as a fluke accident, saying he was either trying to make an unauthorised high ascent or should have seen the risk.

Storm clouds like the one Mr Peng flew in “don't just appear above your head and hoover you into space” and “build over a period of time", Daniel Wainwright, a flight instructor in Australia, told Reuters. “He shouldn’t have been flying.”

The record for a planned flight is held by French pilot Antoine Girard, who flew at an altitude of 8,407m over a stretch of the Himalayas in 2021.

Brad Harris, president of the Tasmanian Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, said the specialised heavy mittens shown in the video seemed to undercut Peng’s claim he had not intended to take off.

He believed Mr Peng could have made up the accidental take-off to avoid sanction for entering restricted airspace.