Japan’s first domestic passenger jet successfully took off on its maiden test flight Wednesday, culminating a decade of development for a programme aimed at competing with Brazilian and Canadian rivals in the global market for smaller aircraft.

The Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ), developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, lifted off from the runway at Nagoya airport.

The approximately 35-metre long two-engine aircraft flew smoothly upward into clear skies in central Japan, said AFP journalists at the scene.

The plane marks a new chapter for Japan’s aviation sector, which last built a commercial airliner in 1962, the YS-11 turboprop that was discontinued about a decade later.