Vehicle was at airfield from where aircraft that hit Citic Tower took off
Friday’s crash occurred at the Citic Tower, Beijing’s tallest building, just kilometres from President Xi Jinping’s compound © Ng Han Guan/AP
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The owner of a car searched by police after an aircraft struck Beijing’s tallest building is named Liu Junhua, a number plate search shows. An FT reporter witnessed black-clothed men overseen by uniformed officers searching the car, a black SUV, late on Friday at Shifosi airfield in Beijing’s eastern Pinggu District, the base of Eastern Pioneer flying school.
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The school is believed to be the operator of the plane that struck Citic Tower in central Beijing at about 6pm on Friday. A search of the car’s number plate in a private database linked to public records identified the vehicle as a Buick Enclave CXL, registered to a person named Liu Junhua, a name that was circulating on social media in connection with the crash. It could not immediately be confirmed whether the vehicle or its owner was linked to the crash at the Citic Tower, which is the headquarters of one of China’s biggest state-owned financial conglomerates.
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Police supervise a search of a vehicle inside the car park at Eastern Pioneer flight school late on Friday after a light aircraft struck Citic Tower © Eleanor Olcott/FT Internet searches show a person of the same name is a managerial employee at a subsidiary of China Citic Bank, an arm of the financial group.
The FT was unable to confirm any link between the person and the incident.
Citic Group and China Citic Bank declined to comment. The employee of the same name as the owner of the searched vehicle could not immediately be reached for comment. The block leading to Citic Tower remained cordoned off by police on Saturday morning, and officers were searching the bags of anyone entering the surrounding streets. A hole was still visible in the east side of the 528m-tall building. “There’s no particular reason, just traffic controls,” one officer said when questioned why the streets were blocked.
Light aircraft crashes into Citic Tower in Beijing
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Friday’s crash occurred in one of Beijing’s busiest financial districts, just kilometres from President Xi Jinping’s compound at Zhongnanhai near Tiananmen Square. Such incidents are highly unusual in China, which maintains some of the world’s strictest aviation controls, particularly in the capital, as well as exhaustive precautions to protect its top leadership. China’s official media has made no mention of the incident, and there have been no reports of confirmed fatalities. Discussion of the incident has been heavily censored on the internet in China, where image searches for Citic Tower revealed old pictures prior to the crash.
