SerpApi.Org
Typho on Bavi slammed into the Japanese islands of Okinawa and swept past Taiwan's northern tip in July, but a video circulating online purportedly depicting the eye of the storm taken from a passenger plane is fabricated. Japanese airlines Peach Aviation, which operates flight MM929 that flies from Okinawa to Taipei, told AFP its flights on July 11 were cancelled, while detection tools flagged the video was made using Google AI's tools.
"Taiwanese passengers on flight MM929 from Okinawa to Taiwan saw Typhoon Bavi from the plane. God bless," reads a simplified Chinese X post published on July 11, 2026, the day Typhoon Bavi hit Taiwan.
The clip shows clouds swirling around what appears to be the eye of a storm, filmed from a passenger aircraft. The aircraft's wing is visible through the window.
The posts surfaced as Typhoon Bavi lashed northern Taiwan and Japan's remote southwestern islands on July 11, toppling trees and leaving tens of thousands without power ( archived link ).
Japanese airlines were forced to cancel dozens of flights, affecting more than 26,000 passengers.
The clip also spread on X and Threads and circulated in multiple languages such as English , Hindi , and Thai .
Comments indicate some users believed the clip was authentic.
"Wow, this is astonishing," read one comment, while another wrote, "Omg! It's horrible".
But Peach Aviation's flight MM929 -- which operates between Naha International Airport in Okinawa and Taoyuan International Airport in Taipei -- was cancelled on July 11, while detection tools indicated the clip was AI-generated.
"We have confirmed that the flights on both July 10 and 11 were cancelled," Peach Aviation told AFP in a July 16 email.
An analysis using Google's SynthID detection tool, flagged that the video was created using the company's AI tools ( archived link ).
The Office of Marine and Aviation Operations at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also told AFP that the circulating video does not match imagery from its own missions ( archived here ).
"While we cannot speak to this specific video, it does seem a bit different from what we typically observe from a high altitude," Keeley Belva, communications director of NOAA Marine and Aviation Operations told AFP on July 16.
The office also provided AFP with a photograph taken from 45,000 feet above the eye of Hurricane Lee on September 13, 2023, which Belva said "would be a good representation of what a tropical system looks like from a high altitude."
AFP has previously debunked other AI-generated misinformation related to typhoons.
