Beijing Is Staying Tight-Lipped on Skyscraper Crash

Five days after a small plane slammed into Beijing's tallest building, what happened in the sky over China's capital is still largely a mystery. The crash into the 109-story CITIC Tower killed the pilot and injured 13, but beyond a brief state-media note, officials haven't offered details on cause, motive, or security failures, the BBC reports. Online, the response has been clearer: video of the impact has vanished, and aviation companies say they've been ordered to halt light-aircraft flights. References to the crash have been scrubbed from social media and even unrelated photos and memes of the landmark tower are disappearing from Chinese platforms

"We were told to not speak about it. Please ask others," a woman at a flight training institute in Beijing told the BBC. There has been no comment from authorities on whether it was an accident or a suicide attack, Financial Times reports. Analysts say the silence suggests leaders may still be piecing together how a two-seat Aurora SA60L got so close to Beijing's heavily protected political core—and how such a breach squares with the party's narrative of tight control. The FT reports that the plane apparently took off from a flying school in eastern Beijing and circled nearby before flying into a restricted zone and crashing into the tower.

There is a permanent no-fly zone over an area that includes the Zhongnanhai leadership compound, a few miles from the tower. "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," says Raymond Kuo at the Chicago Council of Global Affairs. Bloomberg reports that according to data from Flightrader 24, the light aircraft almost collided with a Hainan Airlines passenger jet. The Airbus A330, which aborted its descent minutes before it was due to land, apparently took evasive action as it came within 1,400 feet of the other plane.