Plane Crashes Into Beijing’s Tallest Skyscraper

A small plane slammed into the tallest skyscraper in Beijing on Friday, hitting the building before falling to the street below.

The plane, which was described by one report as a “light sport aircraft,” crashed into CITC Tower and caused evacuations in the business district of China’s capital.

Video posted on social media shows debris from the plane falling onto the street after the crash. A large hole in the building was also visible.

It remains unclear if the pilot purposely flew into the skyscraper. It’s also unclear if anyone in the building was injured. The plane took off from an airfield in the eastern part of Beijing and circled the area before it flew into the building, The New York Times reported, citing FlightRadar, a flight tracking website.

“This aircraft is normally used for pilot training east of Beijing,” Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for FlightRadar, told the Times.

The CITC Tower is 108 stories tall and serves as the headquarters for the state-owned CITC Group, which holds one of the largest collections of foreign assets in the world.

Police rushed to the scene and tried to prevent people from taking photos and videos, Reuters reported. As authorities moved people away from the building, they told them to delete any photos they had taken on their phones.

More information on the plane crash could be difficult to obtain as China’s government controls nearly every aspect of the media and often censors news that could be viewed as negative for the communist regime.

This is a developing story.