On September 13th, 1971, a Triden 1E jet crashed from the Mongolian sky into the Gobi Desert. All on board were killed. Among the dead were senior Chinese Communist Party member and legendary communist general of the civil war, Lin Biao. The general had been Mao’s chosen successor, yet he died along with his wife and son after fleeing his home in Beijing at dawn that morning. In their haste to leave, the waiting plane did not refuel, and it fell from the sky before reaching its intended destination.
Many questions surround Lin Biao’s death. Why did he and his family flee? Where were they trying to flee to? What caused the plane to crash? Chinese records were destroyed shortly after Mao’s death so nothing could contradict the official explanation: Lin plotted to overthrow Mao, fled when the plot was discovered, and then died when his plane ran out of fuel. But that official explanation is flimsy and was only released after a delay of three weeks.
Plotting to overthrow Mao made little sense because Mao was clearly ill by the 1970s. It was known a successor would be taking over soon. Perhaps intensifying factional battles inside the Chinese Communist Party over the succession, irretrievable now, lead the family to flee. Lin seemed to have grown tired of politics by 1971, though, so perhaps it was not him but his wife and son’s political standing that had put the family in danger.
Where was the plane headed is another question. At the time the Soviet Union was hostile to China so perhaps they were seeking asylum there. But at the end of the Cold War it was revealed that the Soviets investigated the crash site. Their findings just made things more complex. Among other things, the Soviets determined the plane initially headed south from Beijing, not north. So the Soviet Union may not have been the plane’s original destination.
So what can we say about Lin Biao’s death? Mao’s chosen successor died in a mysterious plane crash in Mongolia in 1971. His wife and son died with him. Those are about the only absolutely true facts we know today.
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