Mitsubishi officially pulls the plug regional SpaceJet aircraft project

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has officially pulled the plug on its Regional SpaceJet aircraft project.

Formally launched in 2008 and rebranded as SpaceJet in 2019 from Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ), the project had been beset with multiple delays, putting off its initial 2013 rollout. It was then formally put on hold from October 2020.

The news was announced during the company’s Q3 FY2022 results presentation by its president, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and Chief Strategy Officer (CSO), Seiji Izumisawa, stating that it lacked the ‘know how’ to design passenger jets.

In this slide on its presentation, MHI went into further detail on the cancellation of the SpaceJet project. Here, it said that it would “leverage knowledge and experience acquired through the SpaceJet programme to continue contributing to the Japanese aviation industry.”

The conglomerate also noted that it had learnt two lessons from the failure of the programme. The first being that it “lacked initial understanding of highly complex type certification process for commercial aircraft.” The second was that it possessed “insufficient resources to continue long-term development” which included a lack of funding to continue Type Certification and difficulty obtaining cooperation and support from global partners.

MHI is now looking to focus its efforts on applying its knowledge and experience to the F-X (next-generation fighter) programme, and continue OEM business with its CRJ programme.