A Kongming lantern, or sky lantern, caused delays at the Beijing Nanyuan Airport on Saturday night after becoming stuck in the engine of an airplane, the airport confirmed on Sunday.

Information about the incident was first released on the Sina Weibo account of a civil aviation maintenance forum on Saturday night, posted along with a photo showing a broken sky lantern on the engine vane of an airliner at the airport.

The airplane eventually took off after checks revealed there was no damage to the aircraft.

With the Lantern Festival approaching, the airport has warned people not to release Kongming lanterns or drones near its runway clear zone.

A Kongming lantern is a small hot-air ballon made of oil paper, which rises into the air due to a small flame warming the air inside and thus lowering the density of the lantern. People release the lanterns to make wishes, especially during the Mid-Autumn Festival and Lantern Festival celebrations.

An aviation professional who declined to be named told Beijing News that sky lanterns, drones and kites pose safety risks to aircraft in runway clear zones, as they can interfere with a pilot’s vision or come into contact with aircraft.

Changshui International Airport in Kunming released a statement on Sunday, saying that it had experienced numerous cases involving illegal unmanned flying objects in the airport’s runway clear zone recently, adding that its public security department is conducting an investigation into the issue.

According to Legal Evening News, an unmanned drone entered the runway clear zone at Mianyang Nanjiao Airport in Sichuan province on Feb 2, causing three airliners to be diverted and five flights to be delayed. The airport resumed regular services two hours later.

Meanwhile, unmanned flying objects caused delays to departures and arrivals at Shuangliu International Airport in Chengdu on May 28 and Aug 2 last year, the paper reported.

According to China’s Civil Airport Regulation, it is illegal to release birds or fly unmanned balloons and other flying objects in an airport’s runway clear zone.

Many provinces and regions, such as Yunnan and Beijing, have released detailed aviation regulations banning the launching of fireworks or the flying of drones and balloons in airports’ runway clear zones. Those who violate laws may be fined between 20,000 and 100,000 yuan ($3,000 and $15,000).

In January, the Ministry of Public Security released a draft regulation to punish those who violate public orders, which states that those who ignore State regulations on flying all-purpose aircraft, including drones and powered paragliders, or other objects such as balloons, will be taken into custody for five to 10 days. In cases of gross violations, offenders will be taken into custody for 10 to 15 days.

The Chinese community has been shocked by an outrageous case of psychiatrists “running away” from a hospital, along with 64 patients over the weekend.

The Guihang 300 Hospital released an announcement on its official website Saturday, declaring that 64 patients being treated at the hospital had left, led by the director of psychiatry, Yang Shaolei, without informing the patients’ families or going through any formal procedures. Meanwhile, 11 other staff members of the psychiatry department had quit before getting official approval by the hospital, the announcement said.

The hospital immediately reported the incident to the police and later confirmed that the psychiatrists and patients had been transferred to Guiyang No.6 Hospital, according to the announcement.

“The hospital believes this is a planned incident that severely infringes on the patients’ guardians’ right to know and choose, maliciously offends the professional integrity of the medical staff, and tramples industry rules for healthy competition…” the hospital said, and it will “hold the involved medical staffers accountable according to the law”.

At least 18 people have been killed and another two injured after a foot massage parlor caught fire in east China, local authorities said Sunday.

The fire broke out at around 5:26 p.m. Sunday in the Zuxintang Foot Massage Parlor in Tiantai County, Zhejiang Province, according to the county’s publicity department. The fire was extinguished at about 7:05 p.m..

Eight people were found dead in the fire, while another 10 died in hospital after medical efforts failed, according to the department.

Pictures on microblog Sina Weibo show a building engulfed by heavy smoke and people jumping out of windows, while firefighters were trying to tame the blaze.

An investigation into the accident is under way.

The People’s Liberation Army has released a video of a recent exercise employing the advanced DF-16 medium-range ballistic missile, a weapon seen as filling a gap in the nation’s arsenal.

Several launch vehicles carrying the ballistic missiles were seen in the footage that the PLA published on its video website, released to show the training of Rocket Force missile brigade soldiers around the Spring Festival holiday.

The participating units handled a number of scenarios, including chemical/biological contamination, countering satellite reconnaissance and electronic jamming. The crews practiced multiple maneuvers, such as rapid loading, redeployment and launch sequence, though the video showed no missile actually being launched.

Two types of DF-16 that appeared in the exercise are the bullet-shaped missile that is considered the original DF-16 and a new variant that features a maneuverable warhead and several extra fins.

The video represents the third time the DF-16 has been shown to the public. The missile made its debut at a military parade in Beijing in September 2015. In July, a television news program showed General Fan Changlong, a vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, inspecting a DF-16 unit of the Southern Theater Command.

Though the PLA has never disclosed its ballistic missiles’ specifications, experts said the DF-16 poses a challenge to foreign military installations along the first island chain, which is what the Chinese military calls the series of islands that stretch from Japan in the north to China’s Taiwan and the Philippines to the south.

Xu Guangyu, a retired major general and now a strategy researcher, said that DF-16 has a strike range of more than 1,000 kilometers, filling the gap that previously existed with the absence of a medium-range ballistic missile in the PLA’s arsenal. He said the missile also is able to reach Okinawa, a Japanese island about 400 km from China’s Diaoyu Islands.

Shi Hong, executive editor of Shipborne Weapons, said the DF-16 was developed by China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp based on the DF-11 short-range ballistic missile and can carry a warhead of at least 500 kg. The missile has a strike accuracy as good as that of a cruise missile, Shi said. It is also able to maneuver in its final stage to penetrate enemy defensive firepower, he said.

Other PLA Rocket Force brigades also mobilized their DF-11, DF-15 and DF-21C ballistic missiles during training around Spring Festival, according to PLA media outlets.

In another development, Washington Free Beacon, a news website in the United States that specializes in military affairs, reported on Jan 31 that China conducted the first flight of the DF-5C intercontinental ballistic missile in January. The missile carries 10 multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles. The DF-5C is the latest variant of the three-decade-old DF-5 family, the report said.

An unidentified officer from the Defense Ministry’s Information Bureau reached by Shenzhen TV on Saturday would neither confirm nor deny the DF-5C test, but said such tests are not aimed at any foreign nation or specific target.

Drones have been found at the clearance protection zone of an airport in southwest China’s Yunnan Province, and local police are investigating.

Sources with Kunming Changshui International Airport in the provincial capital said Sunday that there were four or five incidents in the past two days of drones flying close to the airport.

“Regulations stipulate that unmanned balloons, kites, gliders and parachutes are not allowed within the clearance protection zone, about 1,028 square kilometers surrounding the runway,” an official said. “Those who violate the regulations are subject to fines up to 100,000 yuan (about 14,600 U.S. dollars).”

The flying of drones could pose a threat to aviation safety, though the incidents reported did not disrupt flights at the airport.