Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has confirmed it is withdrawing from the regional aircraft business and transferring the engineers involved in the ‘SpaceJet’ development to a fighter jet project.

The business spent a total of US$7.6 billion on the programme but froze its development in late 2020, after postponing delivery dates six times.

The decision to commercialize the SpaceJet was made in 2008 and it was initially conceived of as a 90-seat aircraft named Mitsubishi Regional Jet.

The development of the aircraft was seen as a major project led by a private company that aimed to foster Japan’s aircraft industry and would also have been the first domestically produced passenger aircraft developed in Japan since the YS-11, which made its first flight in 1962.

The company’s first delivery was scheduled for 2013, to Japan’s All Nippon Airways.