A small single engine aircraft crashed into the tallest building in Beijing, China Friday. Flight data indicates that the plane likely did not suffer an engine failure when it flew into Beijing airspace, which is heavily restricted to aviation. These facts have led some to posit that the incident appears to be an act of terrorism.
“So there is a lot pointing to the fact that this was not some kind of a failure,” host of The China Show Winston Sterzel said. “It looks like it was deliberately flown into the building.”
The 108-story CITIC Tower, also called the China Zun building, is located in the central business district of the city. According to Reuters, the building is the headquarters of the state-owned conglomerate CITIC Group. The structure is very close to the seat of the Chinese government.
The internet in China is heavily censored from Western websites. Known as “The Great Firewall of China” it bans citizens from accessing many non-Chinese social media platforms and news websites as part of its authoritarian brainwashing operations.
According to Reuters and The China Show, the Chinese social media sites quickly scrubbed images of the incident.
Images of the incident show minor damage to the building, mostly localized to the impact zone.
Image credit: A hole is seen (R) on the side of the CITIC Tower in Beijing on June 26, 2026, after an eyewitness reported plane debris at the base of Beijing’s tallest building. Video footage taken from a nearby building by the witness showed fire trucks blasting water at smoke billowing from the 528-metre (1,732-foot) CITIC Tower, while the wreck of a plane lay on the ground beside the building. (Photo by Peter CATTERALL / AFP via Getty Images)
The communist Chinese government immediately went into coverup mode.
Reuters reported on the CCP attempt to limit information surrounding the event:
POLICE ASK PEOPLE TO DELETE FOOTAGE OF INCIDENT
He shot a video of the aircraft sticking out of the building, he said, but later deleted it because he was scared of getting caught by police.
Police were preventing people from taking pictures and asking others to delete those they had taken while ushering people away from the building, with dozens of police cars and several fire trucks lining nearby roads.
Another courier said he had come to the scene after seeing unverified social media images showing the wreckage of a small aircraft on a road next to the building.
Social media posts of the building on Friday were quickly removed from Chinese social media. A search of the building’s name on the Xiaohongshu app, or Red Note, returned only posts dated Thursday.
Reuters was on-the-ground from Beijing during the incident:
It was unclear if the crash was deliberate or accidental. Airspace is heavily restricted in downtown Beijing.
One of the bystanders at the scene told Reuters he heard the loud crash too, and that “it’s very strange for a plane to fly into this area.”
A police officer later told Reuters journalists to leave. Asked why, the officer said: “We all know why!”
3 Responses
And it didnt fall straight down? Crazy.
Larry SilverSTEIN did not own it
Small engine, small plane? It was a crazy ass’s idea of going out giving the finger to the world.