The Lin Biao incident was the death of Lin Biao, the sole vice chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, in a plane crash near Öndörkhaan, Mongolia, on 13 September 1971. Lin was the official heir to Mao Zedong from 1966 and was travelling with several family members on a Hawker Siddeley Trident of the People's Liberation Army Air Force when all nine people aboard died. The Chinese government said Lin had tried to defect to the Soviet Union after a failed plot to assassinate Mao, and that the aircraft ran out of fuel. The event occurred at the midpoint of the Cultural Revolution and is widely studied for its political consequences.
Official Chinese account
According to the Chinese government, Lin believed Mao no longer trusted him and planned a coup, which his son Lin Liguo and subordinates named Project 571. After Mao changed his train route, the attempt to assassinate him failed. Lin's party then chose to flee to the Soviet Union rather than to its southern power base. The aircraft took off without enough fuel and crashed. Because many government records were destroyed in the late 1970s, the account relies largely on confessions of purged officials, which non-Chinese scholars generally consider unreliable.
Skepticism and later evidence
Since 1971, scholars outside China have questioned the official explanation, arguing that a defection to the Soviet Union was an illogical choice and that Lin had little reason to attempt a coup. Early Soviet investigations reportedly confirmed Lin's death and found the aircraft had enough fuel to reach the USSR. Several alternative theories have been proposed, including that Mao ordered the aircraft shot down. The Chinese government has maintained its official conclusion and has declined to re-evaluate it.