The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) governs all national aviation institutions, including China’s. Its chief priority is safety in every facet of the certification processes. From manufacturing and pilot training to route planning, at every point where a decision contains even the slightest possibility of danger, the ICAO mandates that safety should be the primary concern informing that decision. 

The association also issues certificates of airworthiness (AOCs) to commercial aircraft manufacturers. Today, two companies — the US’ 107-year-old Boeing and Europe’s 53-year-old Airbus — dominate the international skies as a result. They constitute the majority of airline fleets across the world, but this may soon change. On Dec 16, the COMAC 919 (C919), a Chinese-made narrow-body, twin turbofan airliner made its first flight out of the Chinese mainland to the Hong Kong SAR’s Chep Lap Kok International Airport with a special, low altitude pass over Victoria Harbour. 

The C919 went into commercial service in the Chinese mainland in May but began active production in 2011, with the first prototype rolled out in 2015. The aircraft earned its type certification from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) in 2022 after a decade of production and testing that included emergency procedures and thousands of flight hours under adverse to extreme weather conditions.  

On an RTHK broadcast days before the C919’s visit to Hong Kong, Warren Chim, deputy chairman of the Hong Kong Institute of Engineers, said that the C919 is produced to standards higher than those of both Airbus and Boeing. Perhaps Chim’s confidence in the Chinese-made aircraft may be because of the C919’s aerodynamic design configuration being developed with the help of the Tianhe-2 supercomputer located at the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou.

The low pass over Victoria Harbour was the culmination of cross-border efforts, which included the involvement of the HKSAR’s Civil Aviation Department. The C919’s journey to type certification started in 2008 when COMAC first announced its plans for the development of a Chinese civil aircraft that could rival and perhaps outperform those of Airbus and Boeing. COMAC’s C919 would be the most recent aircraft to enter international airspace but it would be doing so after being built with tools and data the others didn’t have when the ICAO issued their AOCs.

And while political relations between China and the West remain tense, ensuring global aviation safety with particular regard to China and the US, appears to supersede those rising political tensions. The crash of China Eastern Airlines flight 5735 from Kunming to Guangzhou in March 2022 saw the two nations put political differences aside to find the cause of why the US-made Boeing 737-800 entered into a sudden, unrecoverable nosedive, crashing and killing all 132 people on board. 

With China’s manufacturing sector displaying a commitment to self-improvement, there is no reason why the C919 should not soon earn a type certification to fly globally

China’s CAAC worked in conjunction with the US’ National Transportation Safety Board to investigate the crash, which was the latest in a string of deadly incidents involving Boeing’s 737 MAX (737-800) fleet. The two national civil associations moved quickly to investigate, learn from and jointly develop plans to remedy the ultimate cause of the crash. The investigation remains ongoing.

Noteworthy about that particular 737 MAX crash is that it happened after an earlier grounding mandate issued to all Boeing 737-800s was lifted in 2020. ICAO investigators discovered the previous series of crashes was due to a fault in the 737 MAX’s newly implemented Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). The ICAO made adjustments to the training, maintenance and operational procedures involving Boeing’s MCAS system and the issue appeared resolved.

Boeing suffered severe financial losses from the series of 737-800 crashes in 2019 and 2020 but is recovering. Still, aviation remains the safest method of travel. We often take this fact for granted considering how flying has become an integral part of our lives, especially so for the business world. 

Aviation has achieved this in just over 100 years but its reputation for safety has not come about by chance and sadly, sometimes earned at the cost of many heart-breaking incidents. Such incidents have steadily decreased since the early days of commercial aviation because of the safety-first mindset of all civil aviation governing bodies. This means that civil aviation all over the world can, and will, only become safer.

Just as Boeing suffered damage to its reputation, a general stigma on Chinese-made products persists in the West but is fading in the face of evidence showing that Chinese companies, like the electronics producer Xiaomi and Shenzhen’s technology and gaming giant Tencent, are gaining popularity both here in the multicultural HKSAR and abroad. With China’s manufacturing sector displaying a commitment to self-improvement, there is no reason why the C919 should not soon earn a type certification to fly globally.

Chim said that the C919’s visit to Hong Kong may also spark an interest in aviation among Hong Kong’s youth. Cathay Pacific already runs cadet pilot programs open to young people, and in some cases, older aspiring commercial pilots. The company announced in June its intention to recruit 800 cadet pilots. The C919 visiting Hong Kong is a positive step toward one of those successful cadets perhaps piloting the C919 overseas sometime in the near future. 

The author is a writer, columnist and historian based in Hong Kong.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.