Just look at the timing and location, at least he saw the results and fruits of his hard work and died doing what he loved RIP
I think in all likelihood, it was seeing the landings that killed him.
He was the chairman of SAC, not an engineer or project leader, for him to be present would support my earlier belief that they feel fairly confident about their capabilities and that this entire exercise was more of a presentation rather than purely for training. And I would be amazed if he was the only VIP onboard that day.
I think there was a good chance that some very senior PLAN and Chinese government figures were also onboard the Liaoning that day for the demonstration, and it was more for their benefit rather than the CCTV crew that the display was made. Hell, the CCTV crew may well have been covering the VIP's visit as well, guess that's something we might want to look out for.
He was likely to have been overworked leading up to the landings, and I can only imagine the kind of pressure, stress he would have been feeling leading up to the landings, then the sense of relief and euphoria after the landings went perfectly was evidently just too much for his heart.
