Mitsubishi Aircraft has announced organisational and personnel changes as it readies for flight testing of its MRJ regional jet in the United States.
The company’s Quality Assurance Division will be divided between two new entities: the Flight Safety Management Office and Quality Assurance Office, says Mitsubishi in a statement.
In addition, a Moses-Lake, Washington Flight Test Centre will be set up in the United States. There are also several other changes in the structure of the company’s engineering teams in advance of “full-fledged flight test operations.”
Other changes will see the airframer relying more on its parent, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, for shared services such as human resources, IT, finance, and corporate communications. The customer service team will also be streamlined.
In addition to the organisational reshuffling, Mitsubishi announced executive changes that will take effect from 1 April.
Shigefumi Tatsumi, who heads technology development in Nagoya, will move to Seattle to head the company’s engineering centre there. Akihiko Ishikawa will move from a MHI to head the Moses-Lake flight test centre.
In addition, five senior executives with Mitsubishi Aircraft will retire on 31 March, although four will remain with Mitsubishi Aircraft in various advisory or coordination capacities.
In a recent interview with Flightglobal, the Japanese airframer said it hopes to ferry Flight Test Aircraft One (FTA-1) to the USA in the summer of 2016.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
