Something Borrowed …

On 09 December 2022, the world's first C919 aircraft, registration number B-919A, was delivered to China Eastern Airlines (CEA), the type’s launch customer.

The delivery ceremony was highlighted by a maiden flight of the inaugural C919 crewed by three senior CEA pilots who repositioned the aircraft from Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG) to the Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport (SHA), where it passed through a water gate before being officially inducted into the CEA fleet.

The C919—produced by Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd. (COMAC), a Chinese state-owned aerospace manufacturer established in May 2008—is the first large transport-category airplane compliant with international airworthiness standards to be designed and built in China. The narrow-body airliner seats between 158 and 174 passengers and is powered by a pair of 30,000-lbf, underwing-mounted, CFM International LEAP (Leading Edge Aviation Propulsion) high-bypass turbofan engines.

Notwithstanding Chinese claims of independent intellectual property rights, COMAC and its C919 are mired in allegations of industrial espionage. A U.S. Justice Department indictment sets forth that from 2010 to 2015, the Chinese cyberthreat actor Turbine Panda, a group linked to the Chinese Ministry of State Security, compromised a number of Western C919 component subcontractors—including GE Aviation, Honeywell, and Safran—from which it stole intellectual property and industrial processes data with the aim of transitioning component manufacturing to Chinese companies. The report cited cyber intrusion and theft as well as HUMINT (a portmanteau of Human and Intelligence) operations, most of which utilized segments of clandestine, purpose-written code.

Investigations of Chinese industrial espionage and theft of trade secrets in connection with the C919’s design and development have led to the arrests of five individuals in the U.S.

In November 2022, a federal jury in Cincinnati sentenced Yanjun Xu, 42, to twenty-years in U.S. federal prison after he was found guilty of attempting to steal advanced aviation trade secrets from General Electric Aviation. Yanjun, a Chinese Ministry of State Security deputy division director, was the first Chinese government intelligence officer to be extradited to the U.S. for purpose of standing trial. Yanjun’s actions and immediate future reconcile poorly with the fact that the Chinese given name Xu translates to Brilliant Rising Sun.

FMI: https://us.ceair.com/en/