Friday, October 03, 2008
Chinese shopping mall selling Mao Zedong's plane (4 p.m.)
BEIJING -- Mao Zedong's jet is up for sale.
A shopping mall where the late Chinese leader's official plane is on display in the southern boomtown of Zhuhai needs to make room for parking, an executive of the mall's owner said Friday.
"We decided to sell the plane to make more parking space because we are short of parking places," Wang Zhilei, general manager of Zhuhai Ridong Group, told The Associated Press.
Wang declined to disclose the asking price or other details.
The British-made Trident jetliner was retired in 1986 and was sold to the mall's owners in 1999, according to the Chinese newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily. Wang said that report was accurate.
Mao's plane was one of three Tridents bought by Beijing in 1969, Southern Metropolis Daily said. Mao died in 1976.
Another Trident served as the personal plane of Lin Biao, Mao's heir apparent, who died when it crashed in 1971 in Mongolia after what some accounts say was a failed coup attempt against Mao. |
