The Chinese Communist Party often tries to prevent people from learning about recent or long ago events that the Party thinks it would be dangerous for them to know about.
The track record of coverup is imperfect. Even when the Reds manage to hide a truth from many people living in China, it often still gets disseminated outside of China. Supplementing major Western media outlets, publications or social-media channels like China Digital Times, GreatFire.org, Teacher Li Is Not Your Teacher, and others pass along as much news and commentary that has been censored within China as they can. Some people in China manage to access these outside sources despite all the Party’s censorship, surveillance, and propaganda.
Thus, I know, you know, and some people in China know that a small plane, apparently evading “some of the world’s strictest aviation controls,” crashed into a skyscraper in Beijing, “the 109-story CITIC Tower that dominates the city’s skyline, killing the pilot and injuring 13 other people” (CNN, June 27, 2026).
The crash sent shards of glass and aircraft debris plummeting hundreds of feet down to the streets below as office workers left for the weekend, causing panic in the heart of China’s most protected city.
A short while later, it was like nothing had happened.
All references to the incident—and the shocking footage of it—had been scrubbed from Chinese social media. The government initially did not publicly acknowledge any incident had taken place. State media—including the country’s national broadcaster CCTV, headquartered across the road from the crash site—made no mention of the incident.
That’s thanks to the work of China’s army of censors and the Communist authorities’ obsessive control over information—particularly concerning events they believe may bring negative attention or consequences.
The authorities eventually decided against imposing a complete blackout:
On Saturday afternoon local time, media affiliated with the Beijing government reported a “single-engine double-seat light sports aircraft collided with a high-rise building in flight,” and that the pilot—the only person on board—had been killed and 13 people injured at the scene. The incident was being “investigated,” it said.
Many people in China don’t know about this incident in any detail, or at all, who would have known if so much reporting and discussion had not been promptly scrubbed. Nevertheless, it happened.
