The current record for a planned flight is held by French pilot Antoine Girard who flew 8,407 metres over a stretch of the Himalayas in 2021.
Peng recorded and then deleted his flight log on XContest, a website popular among paragliders, according to Jakub Havel, a Czech paraglider who helps run the forum. Havel said other flights by Peng remained on the site.
“Nobody intentionally lets themselves be sucked into a thunderstorm cloud in an attempt to break a record – it’s something that any sane paragliding pilot tries to avoid at all costs,” said Havel, who said Peng’s flight should not be considered a record.
Peng could not be reached for comment. CCTV, which distributed the video on a platform owned by Reuters, could not be reached for comment.
Like other Chinese media, CCTV faces a pending regulation from Beijing that requires all AI-generated content to be labeled as such from September.
Contacted on the weekend, China’s State Council, which oversees and coordinates government policy, had no immediate comment.
In a statement, Reuters said it had removed the CCTV package on Peng’s flight from Reuters Connect, an online marketplace that carries material from more than 100 news organisations.
“This content is clearly labelled as third-party content and is not verified or endorsed by Reuters,” the statement said.
“When we became aware of a piece of content that likely contained AI-generated elements on the Reuters Connect platform, we investigated and took it down because the material does not comply with our partner content policy.”
