A small aircraft crashed into Beijing’s tallest building, killing the pilot and injuring 13 people, Chinese authorities said on Saturday.
The two-seat light sport aircraft collided with the high-rise near the East Third Ring Road in Chaoyang at 5.55pm local time on Friday.
The 108-storey structure, shaped like an ancient wine vessel and also known as China Zun, dominates Beijing’s central business district and serves as the headquarters of state-owned conglomerate CITIC Group.
The crash prompted a rapid police response. Officers were seen closing the roads around the 1,732ft skyscraper and preventing people from taking photos and instructing them to delete any images they had captured. They were also seen ushering people away from the building.
A police officer ordered local reporters to leave the scene. When asked why, he replied: “We all know why!”
According to the flight-tracking platform Flightradar24, the plane, a Sunward SA 60L Aurora, took off from an airport nearly 50km east of Beijing. It headed westward and ended just east of the East Third Ring Road.
Chinese authorities were yet to officially identify the pilot or name the building.
It wasn’t immediately known what caused the crash in a city with strict airspace controls, including a recent ban on drones. Authorities said an investigation was underway.
It was also not clear whether the injured, who authorities said were receiving treatment, were in the building or were hit by debris.
A courier told Reuters that he rushed to CITIC Tower from a nearby location after hearing a loud crash at around 6pm local time. He found an aircraft about the size of a car had hit the building.
“It was so loud,” he said of the crash, “louder than fireworks.”
He shot a video of the aircraft sticking out of the building, he added, but deleted it for fear of getting caught by police.
Another courier said that he went to the scene after seeing social media images showing the wreckage of a small plane on a road next to the building.
Many posts about the incident were reportedly removed from Chinese social media. A search of the building’s name on the Xiaohongshu app returned only posts dated Thursday.
Some of the images and videos shared on social media appeared to show debris from a small aircraft near the skyscraper.
While the images were consistent with the location, it was not possible to independently confirm their authenticity.
One image of the wreckage shows a partial registration number of “B-12”. The full registration number of the aircraft is B-12PP.
The SA 60L is a product of Starair Aircraft, based in China‘s central Hunan province. The single-engine machine accounts for over 70 per cent of China’s light sports aircraft market and is exported to the US and Australia, according to the manufacturer’s website.
The aircraft’s maximum cruise speed is 220kmph and its maximum take-off weight is 600kg, according to the website.