Unfounded claim of Chinese C919 airliner's grounding spreads online

Published on September 17, 2025 at 08:18
3 min read
By Anne CHAN, AFP Hong Kong

China's domestically produced C919 jets remain in operation, contrary to false social media claims citing a Bloomberg news article that the airliner had been grounded. The report made no mention of any suspension, and Chinese airlines said the model is still in service.

"China's C919 passenger airliner has run into major problems. All of them had been grounded and are basically abandoned," reads part of an X post in simplified Chinese on August 30, 2025, which gained at least 1.3 million views and more than a thousand likes.

It also shares screenshots of a WeChat thread and a Bloomberg report translated into Chinese.

Screenshot of the false X post captured on September 11, 2025, with a red X added by AFP

The false posts also highlighted lines in the Bloomberg report that read, "But in planes, China is still woefully behind, a dilemma underscored this week by reports that Chinese airlines intend to order nearly a thousand new jets from Boeing and Airbus."

"Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) has delivered less than 200 planes since it was established in 2008."

The screenshots were shared in similar Facebook and X posts.

COMAC's C919 airliner went into commercial operation in May 2023 (archived link).

However, production remains low-scale as it has yet to secure certification from the US Federal Aviation Administration and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (archived link).

It was also caught in the crossfire of Washington's tariff dispute with Beijing, as analysts told AFP that the C919 programme would come to a halt if China stopped buying aircraft components from the United States given the company's reliance on US parts (archived link).

A keyword search led to the Bloomberg article published on the Yahoo website on August 23, but it does not mention the C919 being taken out of service (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the false X post (L) and Yahoo News website (R), captured on September 12, 2025

The original English-language report published on the previous day -- on which the Chinese-language article is based -- also does not mention the jets' grounding (archived link).

It says production of C919 jets was likely to fall short in 2025, while rival Airbus was expected to outsell Boeing. The report made no mention of COMAC abandoning the jetliner.

Flight tracking site Flightradar24 also shows that C919 planes are still in service with Air China, China Eastern Airlines, and China Southern Airlines (archived link).

Air China said on September 10 on its Weibo page that the C919 is in service in six of its flight routes, while China Southern Airlines on September 12 said its C919 aircraft are serving eight domestic routes (archived here and here).

As of September 17, 2025, AFP could not find reliable media reports on the C919's supposed grounding. Hong Kong-based fact-checker HKBU Fact Check has also debunked the claim (archived link).

AFP has previously debunked other misinformation related to aviation.

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