Chinese authorities said the man who flew a small plane into Beijing’s tallest skyscraper last week was a 66-year-old who had mental health problems.
The statement published on Thursday offered the most detailed official account yet of the highly unusual incident that occurred in Beijing’s central business district on the evening of 26 June.
Beijing has some of the world’s strictest aviation control policies and planes are rarely seen flying over the capital. Drones and light aircraft are forbidden from flying over the city without permission.
Despite this, a small propeller aircraft crashed into Beijing’s tallest building, the China Citic tower, the headquarters of the state-owned financial services group. The tower is around 8km (five miles) from the Zhongnanhai compound where leader Xi Jinping lives.
Thursday’s statement from the Chaoyang district government, where the Citic tower is located, said the pilot was a man surnamed Liu, a divorced 66-year-old who lived alone and had obtained a private pilot’s licence in 2024.
The statement said that on the afternoon of the incident, he took off from a general aviation airport in Pinggu district, on the far outskirts of eastern Beijing. “During the independent flight, he deviated from the designated area and lost contact with the airport, subsequently colliding with the high-rise building and dying at the scene,” the statement said.
The authorities said that Liu suffered from chronic insomnia and anxiety and that he had repeatedly written in a diary about “ending his life”. “The comprehensive investigation concluded that this was a case of endangering public safety caused by personal reasons,” the statement said.
The authorities said 13 people suffered injuries in the crash, none of which were life-threatening.
China has in recent years suffered from a spate of what have been called “revenge against society” attacks – deadly rampages committed by people apparently driven to breaking point by personal grievances. Authorities are reluctant to acknowledge such incidents, and when they do, the perpetrator is often described as an isolated, unstable individual.
On the night of the plane crash in Beijing there was a heavy police presence around the China Citic tower with officers ordering people not to take pictures. The authorities did not release any official statement about the crash until nearly 24 hours later.
Although pictures and videos initially circulated on social media, many were quickly deleted. A search for China Citic tower or terms related to the plane crash on the social media platform Weibo on 3 July only produced posts unrelated to the incident.
A search for “A plane crashed into the Citic tower” produced one relevant post that was from 2 July: “The most ridiculous news I heard today … [a person] crashed a plane into the Citic building … where did you get that from? There’s no such thing”.