Pilot wrote diary entries about suicide before deliberately crashing into Beijing skyscraper, authorities say
Beijing: Chinese authorities say the pilot who crashed a small plane into Beijing’s tallest building wrote repeatedly about suicide in his diary and acted deliberately.
A statement issued Thursday by a district-level city official said the pilot, identified only by the surname Liu, was a 66-year-old divorced man living in Beijing who lived alone and suffered from chronic insomnia and anxiety.
The brief statement marks the first official statement on the incident, six days after it occurred on June 26. Shortly before 6pm that day, the pilot flew a single-engine sports plane into the 108-storey CITIC building in Beijing’s CBD, punching a hole in the side of the building and sending debris into the street below.
The crash, which authorities quickly sought to censor public reporting, immediately triggered questions about a major security breach near the capital’s official buildings and the official residence of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Thursday’s statement said Liu was a licensed pilot and took off on an independent flight from the general aviation airport in Pinggu District. He then deviated from the designated route, lost contact with the airport, and then crashed into a tall building, dying at the scene.
In the statement published by the Chaoyang district government on its WeChat account, it was said: “Liu was suffering from chronic insomnia and anxiety, and his diary contained statements repeatedly stating that ‘his life was ended’.”
“The thorough investigation concluded that this was a case that endangered public safety for personal reasons.”
The statement stated that 13 people were treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
It was also confirmed that the pilot was flying an Aurora SA60L single-engine, two-seat propeller-driven light aircraft with registration number B-12PP; these were 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 if the Airbus A330 did not take evasive action and canceled its landing at Beijing Capital Airport minutes before landing, the small plane could have collided with a passenger jet belonging to Hainan Airlines. Flightradar24 data showed the two planes came within 1,500 feet (457 meters) of each other.
In the hours after the crash, authorities censored any mention of the incident on Chinese websites and social media, but videos soon appeared on western platforms showing the damaged building and the wreckage of the plane on the street below.
It took almost a full day after the crash for authorities to acknowledge the incident with a brief statement confirming the pilot’s death.
The information gap fueled widespread online rumors that an employee of China CITIC Group, identified as a female executive named Liu Junhua, was piloting the plane when it crashed into the tower where the conglomerate is headquartered.
Finance Times Police reported that they searched a car belonging to the person with the same name parked at the airport within hours of the accident, but the British newspaper could not confirm any connection between the employee and the incident.
On Monday, CITIC Group Corporation released a video that indirectly denied the rumors but did not directly reference the incident.
In the photo, Liu Junhua, a manager at CITIC Wealth, was seen discussing investment strategies and the firm’s asset management services, along with his name, title and timestamp of June 29.
Lisa Visentin is the North Asia correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based in Beijing. He was previously a federal political correspondent in Canberra.Connect with: X or email.
