UPDATE: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’s regional jet aircraft has aborted a test flight to the United States for the second straight day due to problems with an air-conditioning system.
The Mistubishi Regional Jet (MRJ) aircraft, Japan’s first passenger plane developed at home in more than a half century, landed back in Nagoya at 3:13pm after taking off from the airport just before 1pm, according to the company spokesman Kenichi Takemori. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ regional jet aircraft had been try to fly to the US for a second time today after aborting its maiden test flight to the US a day earlier due to problems with an on-board system about an hour into the trip.
The aircraft initially took off from an airport in Nagoya, Japan, but turned back on Sunday after discovering the need to check data related to monitoring of its air conditioning.
Problems “in the same air conditioning monitoring system” caused it to return a second time today, Mitsubishi Heavy and its subsidiary Mitsubishi Aircraft said in a joint statement.
“After the jet returned on Sunday, we checked the system and changed parts. After confirming that there was no problem in a test on the ground, today we launched the flight again, but the same problem occurred,” said the company spokesman Yuji Sawamura.
The development of the MRJ has suffered a series of delays.
In December Mitsubishi Heavy said it was postponing delivery of the planes by one year to the second quarter of 2018 for system software upgrades and other design changes.
The MRJ will compete with other regional passenger jet manufacturers such as Brazil’s Embraer and Canada’s Bombardier.
Mitsubishi Heavy unveiled the jet – which is about 35 metres long – in October last year and has received more than 400 orders.
The MRJ, which can seat as many as 92 people, is the first of four that the firm will fly to US for testing as the company works toward getting certification in the world’s largest economy. The aircraft made its first flight in November last year and has been undergoing tests since.
The last passenger aircraft produced in Japan was the YS-11, a turboprop made by Nihon Aircraft Manufacturing, a consortium that included Mitsubishi Heavy, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Fuji Heavy Industries. Production was stopped in 1974 after 182 of the planes were sold.
Mitsubishi Aircraft, a unit of Mitsubishi Heavy, fixed the air-conditioning problem after inspections that ended this morning, Kyodo News had reported.
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