Beijing: The pilot who crashed a small plane into Beijing’s tallest building had repeatedly written about suicide in his diary and acted deliberately, Chinese authorities said.
The pilot, identified only by his surname Liu, was described as a 66-year-old man and Beijing resident who was divorced, lived alone, and suffered from chronic insomnia and anxiety, a statement released by a district-level city authority said on Thursday.
The short statement marks the first official explanation of the incident, six days after it occurred on June 26. Shortly before 6pm that day, the pilot flew a single-engine sports aircraft into the 108-storey CITIC building in Beijing’s CBD, puncturing a hole in the side of the building and sending debris into the street below.
The crash, which authorities quickly scrambled to censor from public reporting, immediately triggered questions about a major security lapse close to the capital’s official buildings and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s official residence.
Thursday’s statement said Liu was a licensed pilot and had taken off on an independent flight from a general aviation airport in the Pinggu District. He then deviated from the designated route, lost contact with the airport, and subsequently collided with a high-rise building and died at the scene.
“Liu suffered from chronic insomnia and anxiety, and his diary repeatedly contained expressions of ‘ending his life’,” the statement, issued by the Chaoyang district government on its WeChat account, said.
“The comprehensive investigation concluded that this was a case of endangering public safety caused by personal reasons.”
Thirteen people were treated for non-life-threatening injuries, the statement said.
It also confirmed the pilot had been flying an Aurora SA60L single-engine, two-seat propeller light aircraft, registration number B-12PP — details that foreign media had already pieced together using flight-tracking data. Investigators said Liu obtained a sport pilot license in 2021 and a private pilot license in 2024.
Bloomberg reported that the small plane could have collided with a Hainan Airlines passenger jet had the Airbus A330 not taken evasive action and aborted its descent into Beijing Capital Airport minutes before it was due to land. The two aircraft came within 1,500 feet (457 meters) of each other, Flightradar24 data showed.
In the hours after the crash, authorities censored any mention of the incident from Chinese websites and social media, but videos soon surfaced on western platforms showing the damaged building and the plane’s wreckage in the street below.
It took authorities almost a full day after the crash to acknowledge the incident in a brief statement confirming the pilot’s death.
The vacuum of information fuelled rampant rumours online that an employee of China CITIC Group, identified as a female manager called Liu Junhua, was piloting the plane when it crashed into the tower where the conglomerate is headquartered.
The Financial Times reported that police searched a car that belonged to a person with the same name in the hours after the crash, which had been parked at the airfield, but the UK newspaper could not confirm any link between the employee and the incident.
On Monday, CITIC Group Corporation released a video that served as an indirect repudiation of the rumours, while making no direct reference to the incident.
It showed Liu Junhua, a manager in the CITIC Wealth division, discussing investment strategies and the firm’s wealth management services, with her name, title and the June 29 timestamp prominently displayed.
Lisa Visentin is the North Asia correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age based in Beijing. She was previously a federal political correspondent based in Canberra.Connect via X or email.
