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Supposedly after the discovery of the planned coup, Lin and his family (his wife Ye Qun and his son) and several personal aides attempted to flee to the Soviet Union. It is said they were chased to the airport by armed PLA officers and guards. According to the PRC account of Lin's death, their prearranged Hawker Siddeley Trident plane did not take aboard enough fuel before taking off, and as a result, the plane crashed near Öndörkhaan in Mongolia on September 13, 1971 after running out of fuel, and all on board were killed. Interestingly, the official Mongolian report on the crash investigation points out that the plane had plenty of fuel at the time of the crash. The investigators concluded that the plane crashed because of pilot error. The corpses were buried in a grave not far from the site of the crash. However, the Soviets reportedly sent a KGB investigative team, which recovered some of the remains for subsequent identification.
It has been reported that when Zhou Enlai asked Mao Zedong whether air force fighters should be sent to chase Lin's plane, Mao replied with an ancient Chinese proverb: “天要下雨，娘要嫁人，由他去吧” （"Some things cannot be changed, just as it has to rain and young girls have to marry. And so, let it be; let him go."） Li Zhisui writes that there was a feeling of relief in the Chinese government when word came from Mongolia that there were no survivors. Zhou Enlai reportedly said, "死得好, 死得好" ("It is better that he's dead")[citation needed]. On the other hand, a biography of Zhou by Han Suyin claims that, on hearing that Lin was on board an aircraft leaving China, Zhou in fact ordered the grounding of all Chinese aircraft.
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