Overview
- COMAC reported the CE‑25A made its first crewed test flight on Saturday, November 14, 2026, with two pilots and a flight‑test engineer aboard for a 57‑minute sortie that included 16 minutes airborne and about 60.4 kilometres flown.
- The piloted flight follows 19 prior autonomous validation tests that began after the aircraft's first unmanned intelligent flight on February 2, 2026, showing a stepwise move from remote operation to human‑supervised testing.
- The CE‑25A is a 10‑tonne‑class, 19‑seat electric regional design that uses ten distributed electric ducted fans mounted on its wings and is reported to cruise at about 300 km/h with a range near 400 km.
- China’s Civil Aviation Administration has accepted COMAC’s application for a type certificate, but acceptance is not certification and the aircraft still needs extensive regulatory review before it can carry paying passengers.
- Key hurdles remain including battery energy density, charging and operations infrastructure, certification of electric propulsion and autonomous systems, and commercial tests with full passenger loads; COMAC is working with domestic partners such as CATL and Shanghai Jiao Tong University on those challenges.