(Update) MRJ Returns Soon after Departure for U.S. Flight Test

Toyoyama, Aichi Pref., Aug. 27 (Jiji Press)--The first unit of the Mitsubishi Regional Jet, the first Japanese-developed small passenger jet, left Saturday for a full-scale flight test in the United States, but returned soon due to the need for checks on its air-conditioning system. About an hour after the departure, the MRJ returned to Nagoya Airport in the town of Toyoyama, Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, as an in-flight monitor indicated a problem with the air-conditioning system. The MRJ will leave for the United States on Sunday at the earliest. The jet was scheduled to arrive at an airport in the U.S. state of Washington a few days later, via New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido, northernmost Japan, the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia and Alaska. At its flight test center at Moses Lake in Washington, Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp. plans to conduct test flights with four MRJ jets for about 2,500 hours in order to obtain type certification, which is equivalent to sales permission. With the test, the MRJ is set to enter the final stages of development. Mitsubishi Aircraft, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.

, aims to deliver the first MRJ, to All Nippon Airways, in mid-2018.

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