Can this new Russian passenger jet challenge Airbus and Boeing?

Russia on Sunday held a successful test flight of its new MC-21 medium-haul passenger jet that it hopes will revive its troubled civil aviation industry and challenge giants Airbus and Boeing.

The plane, whose prototype was unveiled last June, flew for 30 minutes at a height of 1,000 metres and a speed of 300km/h, said its makers, the Irkut Corporation aircraft manufacturer.

The plane took off from the Siberian city of Irkutsk where the Irkut company is based, said Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, writing on Twitter.

Rogozin, who oversees aviation and space, wrote as he watched at the scene: “We’re flying!”

President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov told RIA Novosti state news agency that Rogozin “by phone reported to Putin that our medium-haul plane took wing, carrying out its first test flight.”