BEIJING, June 26 (Reuters) – An aircraft about the size of a car crashed into Beijing’s tallest building on Friday, witnesses told Reuters, with police closing off roads around the skyscraper and authorities giving no information about the incident.
The building, known as CITIC Tower or China Zun, is a 108-storey skyscraper in Beijing’s central business district. It is the headquarters of the state-owned conglomerate CITIC Group.
There was a heavy police presence at the site, with some approach roads closed to cars.
Two glass panels on a high floor were damaged. There was no immediate official comment or response to a request for information sent to the city government outside business hours.
A courier standing among people who had gathered near the building said he had rushed over to CITIC Tower around 6 p.m. local time (1000 GMT) from a nearby location after hearing a loud crash as an aircraft about the size of a car hit it.
“It was so loud – louder than fireworks,” he said.
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.
An office worker in a nearby building said she saw a blue tarp over a large object on the road at the side of the building the size of a VW Beetle from her office window at around 6:45 p.m.
“I was on my way down to dinner when someone said a plane had crashed into the next building. So we went to look out the window and saw police cars, ambulances and the blue tarp on the road,” said the 39-year-old.
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!”
(Reporting by Maxim Shemetov, Mei Mei Chu, Laurie Chen, Liz Lee, and Lewis Jackson; Editing by Aidan Lewis and Philippa Fletcher)
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