A small plane crashed into Beijing's tallest skyscraper on Friday, smashing a large hole in the building and setting off an immediate information blackout by Chinese authorities. Video and photos circulated on social media showed the aircraft plummeting to the ground after striking the 108-story CITIC Tower, located in the Chinese capital's central business district.
Fox News reported, citing The Associated Press, that police, fire, and emergency medical workers arrived at the scene quickly and began preventing witnesses from taking photos while attempting to clear the area.
Flight tracking data from Flightradar24 identified the aircraft as a Sunward SA 60L Aurora. The plane took off from a location approximately 30 miles east of Beijing and crashed shortly before 6 p.m. local time. ADS-B tracking data only includes a partial flight path and stops before the moment of impact.
A person working inside the high-rise said the crash triggered the building's fire alarms. Beyond that account, information from inside the tower was limited.
Chinese censors moved to scrub content about the crash from the country's restricted internet, though photos and videos escaped through what the AP described as the country's "great firewall" and were shared on the social media platform X. No information had been released by government officials or state-run media as of Friday afternoon.
The cause of the crash, the identity of the pilot, and the number of casualties remained unclear. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. The story was still developing as of the time of this report.
