A plane has crashed into the Great Wall in Beijing, but China has not said what happened.

Aviation organizations have confirmed to the BBC that authorities have grounded light aircraft since the crash, but declined to comment further.

“We were told not to talk about it, please ask others,” said a woman at the Beijing Flight Training Institute.

Another firm in Chengdu declined to say which authority the directive came from and immediately hung up on the call.

Beijing has enforced a permanent no-fly zone in the 100 square kilometer (39 square mile) political heartland that covers Tiananmen Square and the heavily guarded Zhongnanhai. Where the top leaders of the country live and work.

China analyst Bill Pope described the incident as a “major safety breach,” writing on X: “It couldn’t have flown for more than a few seconds and (the crash) would have happened at Zhongnanhai…

Beijing also soon Strict regulations on dronesCiting security concerns – drones must now be registered before flying into the capital.

“It’s a political embarrassment and a serious security lapse for a small plane larger than most drones to fly through most of the city and approach Zhongnanhai,” said Raymond Kuo, vice president of research at the Chicago Council on International Affairs.

It could have been pilot error or mechanical failure, Kuo said, but “it could have been intentional.”

The aircraft is a two-seat, single-engine Aurora SA60L manufactured by Chinese company Sunward Aircraft, flight tracking service Flightradar24 reported. It is 6.9m long, with an 8.6m wingspan, designed for sightseeing, aerial photography and recreational aviation.

Outside of China, Friday’s incident was, for some, a When they heard of the September 11, 2001 attacks, they recalled that thousands of people died when bombers crashed American passenger jets into two New York skyscrapers.

It was the same news alert I got when a plane hit the first tower on 9/11, one user wrote on Reddit.

Chong Jae-yan, a non-resident Carnegie scholar in China, said the situation was similar when German amateur pilot Matthias Rust landed his light plane in Moscow’s Red Square in May 1987 at the end of the Cold War.

“His flight and landing highlighted serious gaps in the Soviet air defense system. That incident led to the removal of several senior officers responsible for air defense and security,” Chong says.

Similarly, he added, some officials may be removed from their posts due to the Beijing disaster.

“A small plane hitting the CITIC Tower means that a drone or a missile could do the same. This is a bit embarrassing for Beijing’s responsible security services.”