China's first large jetliner has taken off on its maiden flight, a key moment in the country's push to challenge the U.S. and Europe as a global manufacturer.
The C919, China's first domestically designed and built large airliner, took off from Shanghai Pudong International Airport at 2:01 p.m. local time on Friday with a five-person crew aboard.
With the prototype airborne, China joins the ranks of the few nations that have developed homegrown large airliners: the U.S., Russia, Brazil, Canada, the U.K., France and Germany.
Made by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), the 168-seat C919 is roughly the same size as Airbus's A320 and Boeing's 737-800, which are the most popular airliners in the world.
The takeoff in Shanghai on Friday afternoon was watched by people around the globe, including at least 2 million on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo.
Comac also offered an unprecedented look inside the maiden flight of a new airliner. The company streamed live images from the jet's cockpit looking over the shoulder of its test pilots as they performed gentle maneuvers off the coast. Neither Boeing nor Airbus has ever provided a live view of the cockpit on a first flight.
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