China Northern Airlines Flight 6901
1993 aviation accident
China Northern Airlines Flight 6901 (CJ6901) was a McDonnell Douglas MD-82 airliner from Beijing's Capital International Airport to Ürümqi Diwopu International Airport in Xinjiang, China. On November 13, 1993, it crashed on approach to Ürümqi Airport. Twelve of the 102 passengers and crew on board were killed. The accident has been attributed to pilot error.
Accident
While on final approach, the autopilot automatically disconnected. The Captain proceeded to reengage it, believing that it would still be in approach mode. When activated, however, the autopilot went into vertical speed mode with a setting of -800 feet per minute. The crew's failure to disconnect the autopilot and manually land the airplane contributed to the accident. Another factor was the crew's lack of proficiency in English. When the Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS) issued an aural alarm, the captain asked his first officer what the words "Pull up" meant.
“China Northern Airlines Flight 6901” enters the record as 1993 aviation accident. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what China, Northern and Airlines can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5099822. Authority coordinates are 43.920, 87.522. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1993.
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This entry incorporates text from “China Northern Airlines Flight 6901” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.