First Mitsubishi SpaceJet M90 Scrapped

This week, the first Mitsubishi SpaceJet M90 aircraft met its demise and has begun to be scrapped in the U.S.

This article will cover the brief details of the scrapping of the first SpaceJet M90 aircraft following the removal of the program from Mitsubishi’s works.

First Mitsubishi SpaceJet M90 Scrapped

Mitsubishi has begun the scrapping process of its first SpaceJet M90 aircraft, registered as JA21MJ.

The scrapping is taking place beside the runway at Grant County International Airport (MWH) at Moses Lake in Washington, U.S.

At the time of scrapping, JA21MJ was eight years old and was the first SpaceJet M90 testbed aircraft produced by the Japanese manufacturer. However, this is actually the second SpaceJet M90 aircraft to be scrapped, as JA23MJ was scrapped also at Moses Lake back in March 2022.

Mitsubishi now has only five SpaceJet M90 testbed aircraft remaining, all of which are parked and registered as JA22MJ, JA24MJ, JA25MJ, JA26MJ, and JA27MJ. It’s now only a matter of time before these remaining five also meet their fate by being eventually scrapped.

SpaceJet Program Removal…

Back in early February 2023, it was revealed that Mitsubishi was pulling the plug on their SpaceJet M90 aircraft program due to a vast number of reasons, those are –

• Insufficient initial understanding of the highly complex type certification process for commercial aircraft.
• Insufficient resources to continue long-term development.

As well as this, Mitsubishi went into detail on why they chose to discontinue the program in the first place:

1. Technology
   • Partial revisions are needed due to prolonged development.
   • Decarbonization solutions are also required.
2. Product
   • Difficult to obtain understanding and necessary cooperation from global partners
3. Customer
   • Little progress on the scope clause (conditions related to aircraft number and size
     included in airline-labor union agreements) relaxation resulted in M90’s not meeting
     North American RJ market needs.
   • Recent pilot shortages also add to the uncertainty of SJ’s business viability.
4. Funding
   • Further extensive funding is required to continue Type Certification acquisition process.
   • Business is not feasible in the market environment described above.