The Lin Biao Incident

At around 2.30 am on 13 September 1971 a British-made Trident airliner crashed in Eastern Mongolia. On board was 63-year-old Lin Biao – then vice chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and minister of national defence, as well as the official heir to the elderly Mao Zedong – along with Lin’s wife and one of his sons. There were no survivors.

The government’s story was that Lin had been planning a military coup against Mao, and that he was attempting to flee to the Soviet Union after his plot had been discovered. His plane simply ran out of fuel, it was said.

Certainly the family had fled in a hurry from Beidaihe, a coastal retreat favoured by China’s elite to the east of Beijing, shortly after midnight. But why would a man due to inherit power on Mao’s death risk everything to seize it prematurely?

Despite an outstanding military reputation forged in China’s long civil war, Lin had a passive disposition. He took sleeping pills at night. One report has him being carried onto the Trident over someone’s shoulder.

And why was the plane flying south when it crashed, having turned back before the border? Official Chinese records and reports have been destroyed. The truth may never be known.