Four days after a small plane slammed into Beijing’s tallest skyscraper, killing the pilot and wounding 13 others, China has still not explained why or how it happened — and has erased almost every trace of the incident from public view.
The aircraft, identified as a B-12PP, took off from Shifosi Airport half an hour before the crash. It was due to turn back at 5.45pm, but flight monitoring lost its tracking signal near Beijing’s East Fifth Ring Road. Moments later, the plane punched holes into the 109-storey CITIC Tower, a landmark shaped like a Chinese wine vessel. The holes have since been boarded up.
“China has not explained why a plane crashed into Beijing's CITIC Tower, killing the pilot and wounding 13.”
The only official statement so far is a 60-word report in state-owned Beijing Daily. National media such as Xinhua and China Central Television have not covered the crash. Dramatic footage of the collision has been removed from Chinese social media, along with unrelated photographs and memes of the skyscraper – often shared by young people as a lucky charm for exam results or jobs.
At least three aviation firms told the BBC they had been instructed to suspend light aircraft operations but declined to elaborate. “We were told to not speak about it. Please ask others,” said a woman at a flight training institute in Beijing. Another firm in Chengdu ended the call when asked which authority gave the order.
The crash occurred just a few kilometres from Zhongnanhai, the heavily guarded compound where China’s top leaders live and work, inside a permanent no-fly zone covering roughly 100 sq km over the political core. “Not many more seconds of flying and it could have been at Zhongnanhai,” wrote China analyst Bill Bishop on X. “An earthquake in Beijing’s security system.”
The censorship machinery kicked in so quickly and thoroughly, says Manya Koetse of the Eye on Digital China newsletter, because Beijing’s leadership may be “still not exactly sure what happened.” The incident, she adds, “calls into question government competence and threatens important party narratives.”
Beijing district authorities say an investigation is underway, but they have not named the pilot who died.