Almost immediately after a single-engine aircraft slammed into the tallest skyscraper in Beijing on June 26, killing the pilot and injuring 13 others, China’s sophisticated online censorship system went into overdrive. The day after the crash, local Chaoyang district authorities issued a brief statement confirming the incident had taken place, but official media outlets had little else to say about the dramatic incident for nearly a week.
References to the crash, as well as images of the debris that crashed down to the streets below, were quickly scrubbed from social media platforms. Chinese AI chatbots complied with official rules by downplaying the incident or denying it altogether as “fake news.” While an investigation is said to be underway, the cause of the crash is still not publicly known.
When more details were finally released on July 2, they again came from local district-level officials, indicating the central government’s desire to play down the severity of the incident. The statement focused entirely on the pilot’s personal background: an older man, divorced and depressed, identified only by his last name, Liu. It said nothing about how a plane was able to enter China’s most sensitive airspace and crash into the 109-story CITIC Tower, just a few miles away from the Zhongnanhai leadership compound. Instead, officials attempted to portray a sense of finality and closure: Move along, nothing to see here.