Technical fault sees further delays for Mitsubishi MRJ90

Japanese manufacturer, Mitsubishi, has seen a further setback to its already heavily delayed MRJ90 twin-engine regional which will seat between 70 and 90 passengers. The current incident involved its first test aircraft, which was positioned to Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake, Washington, U.S. where flight testing is far less restricted than in Japan.
This series of tests had been scheduled for late 2016 to early 2017 and had been brought forward in case of any unexpected problems. The current first delivery date to All Nippon Airways, the launch customer was originally set for 2014 but has subsequently been postponed until mid-2018. The aircraft was on its ferry flight to the U.S when a technical fault with the air management system forced it to return to Tokyo Nagoya Airport.
According to Mitsubishi, “Yesterday [Aug. 27], a part of the air management system stopped automatically due to the trouble with the monitoring function of the air management system. Today [Aug. 28], the system didn’t stop automatically, however we recognized a similar issue with the same system. We then decided to return the aircraft,” adding that “We will decide the date to resume the ferry flight based on the results of inspection.”
Mitsubishi will now investigate whether the problem actually lies within the air management system, or the monitoring function itself.