An C919 aircraft of Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd. (COMAC) took off from Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport of Sichuan on September 19th, 2024, and landed smoothly at Lhasa Kongga International Airport of Xizang after a flight of 2 hours and 8 minutes. This is the first time that the C919 aircraft has flown to Lhasa and meet with the ARJ21 aircraft which is carrying out demonstration flight in Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, the "roof of the world".
Lhasa Kongga International Airport is located in the Yarlung Zangbo River valley, with an elevation of 3,569 meters. The surrounding mountains are numerous, and the meteorological environment is complex and changeable, which has high requirements for the plateau operation performance of aircraft. Flying to Lhasa this time, the C919 aircraft will carry out development flight tests of systems critical to high plateau operation, such as the environmental control system, the avionics system and the power plant system, as well as high plateau airport adaptability checks, thus to lay a foundation for subsequently meeting the operational requirements of high plateau routes and the development of plateau versions of aircraft.
ARJ21 aircraft has taken Chengdu of Sichuan, Xining of Qinghai and Lhasa of Xizang as the operation bases to carry out demonstration flight around Qinghai-Xizang Plateau since August 21st, 2024. Up to now, it has completed flight tasks in 25 routes and 55 flight segments for 62 hours, covering 11 high plateau airports, and has flown 4 sorties at Daocheng Yading Airport, the highest civil airport in the world, which fully verifies the adaptability of ARJ21 aircraft to high plateau operation.