It has been four days since a small plane slammed into Beijing’s tallest skyscraper, killing the pilot – the only person on board – and wounding 13 others, but it’s still unclear why, and how, that happened.

A 60-word report detailing the basic facts in state-owned Beijing Daily is the only official statement China has published so far on the crash, which happened just a few kilometres from Zhongnanhai, the Communist Party’s headquarters.

Friday’s collision left holes on the side of the 109-storey CITIC Tower, which have since been boarded up. Dramatic footage of the incident has been scrubbed off the internet. At least three aviation firms tell the BBC they’ve been told to suspend light aircraft operations but declined to elaborate, saying they had been instructed not to discuss it.

  • JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz
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    18 hours ago

    it’s still unclear why, and how, that happened.

    Because someone decided to fly a plane through an airspace occupied by a building.
    I kinda doubt Beijing has some rapid air defence interception plan that could somehow prevent someone flying their own private plane into a building if they so desire, any more than they can prevent someone swerving into oncoming traffic on purpose.

      • justlemmyin@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Well, I would imagine that BBC would want to report accurately, so if the plane people were brown then they were terrorists, if they were white then they were a bunch of lone wolves and if they were chinese then IDK i am not a tankie, I just write comments from the toilet.

  • join@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    how much nicer the world would have been if after 9/11 the us gov just said „the twin towers were selected for a surprise demolition, a new one will be built shortly. on an unrelated note, 3000 people unfortunately died of a car crash in ny this morning.“ and then didn’t start a war that directly and indirectly killed 4.5 million people.

  • secher@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I find it hard to believe that China can scrub videos from the Internet. Lemme check.