China Identifies Pilot In Fatal Beijing Skyscraper Crash, Cites 'Personal Reasons'

The pilot killed when a plane crashed into Beijing's tallest building, 109-story CITIC Tower, last week was a 66-year-old Beijing resident surnamed Liu, the city's Chaoyang district government said on Thursday.

Liu had suffered from insomnia and anxiety, the government said, adding that the cause of the crash was "personal reasons." The incident killed him, the only person on board and wounded 13 others on the ground 

The brief, 60-word statement published by the state-run Beijing Daily is the only official account China has released so far about the incident, which occurred just a few kilometres from Zhongnanhai, the headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party.

On Saturday, media affiliated with the Beijing municipal government reported that a "single-engine double-seat light sports aircraft collided with a high-rise building in flight."

The aircraft struck the 528-metre (1,732-foot) CITIC Tower, Beijing's tallest building since its completion in 2018 and a defining feature of the capital's skyline.

The skyscraper houses the headquarters of state-owned conglomerate CITIC Group as well as offices of technology giant Alibaba. Located in Beijing's central business district, the surrounding area is home to numerous foreign embassies, including those of the United Kingdom and Vietnam, and the China offices of international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), making it one of the capital's most prominent diplomatic and commercial hubs.

The crash on Friday left holes in the side of the 109-storey CITIC Tower, which have since been boarded up. Videos of the collision have been removed from Chinese social media platforms, while photographs and memes of the skyscraper unrelated to the incident have also been taken down.

The BBC reported that at least three aviation companies had been instructed to suspend light aircraft operations. The companies declined to comment further, saying they had been told not to discuss the matter.

With few official details released, questions have emerged over how the aircraft was able to penetrate the tightly controlled airspace over Beijing, which has some of the world's strictest aviation restrictions.

The BBC reported that online censorship intensified almost immediately after the crash. Manya Koetse, who runs the Eye on Digital China newsletter, said the swift response may be because Beijing's leadership is "still not exactly sure what happened".

"This is a highly unusual incident," she said, adding that it calls into question government competence and threatens "important party narratives."

Raymond Kuo, vice-president of research at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, told the BBC: "The fact that a small plane, considerably larger than most drones, was able to fly across much of the city and get quite close to Zhongnanhai is both politically embarrassing and a major security lapse."