EHang’s EH216‑S Pilotless eVTOL aircraft secures Obtains Experimental Flight Authorization Certificate from Brazil’s ANAC

EHang has obtained an Exper­i­men­tal Flight Autho­riza­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CAVE) from Brazil’s Nation­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Agency (ANAC), where the com­pa­ny plans to con­duct test and tri­al flights with its EH216‑S eVTOL air­craft.

Fol­low­ing an exhaus­tive and dili­gent process com­pris­ing of thor­ough tech­ni­cal doc­u­men­ta­tion review and air­craft and ground con­trol sta­tion inspec­tion, ANAC grant­ed the CAVE for EH216‑S in Brazil.

Under ANAC’s CAVE frame­work, EHang and its local part­ner and oper­a­tor Gohob­by will con­duct com­pre­hen­sive EH216‑S test and tri­al flight cam­paigns in Brazil in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with ANAC and Brazil’s Air­space Con­trol Depart­ment (DECEA).

These ini­tia­tives aim to advance research and devel­op­ment of Con­cepts of Oper­a­tions and Unmanned Air­craft Traf­fic Man­age­ment sys­tems and ser­vices, ensur­ing safe and effi­cient UAM deploy­ments across Brazil.

Vic­to­ria Xiang, Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer of EHang Europe and Latin Amer­i­ca, said: “We are delight­ed to have obtained the Exper­i­men­tal Flight Autho­riza­tion Cer­tifi­cate from Brazil’s Nation­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Agency, and look for­ward to con­duct­ing the first EH216‑S pilot­less eVTOL flight in the coun­try in the near future.

“EHang will con­tin­ue to work close­ly with ANAC, as well as oth­er civ­il avi­a­tion author­i­ties around the world, to devel­op and deploy safe UAM around EHang’s cer­ti­fied EH216‑S pas­sen­ger-car­ry­ing pilot­less eVTOL with acces­si­bil­i­ty for all.”

EHang has obtained the first Type Cer­tifi­cate, Pro­duc­tion Cer­tifi­cate and Stan­dard Cer­tifi­cate of Air­wor­thi­ness for its EH216‑S in the glob­al eVTOL air­craft mar­ket.

These cer­tifi­cates are grant­ed by Civ­il Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion of Chi­na (CAAC), affirm­ing that the type design, pro­duc­tion pro­ce­dures and qual­i­ty man­age­ment of EH216‑S align with rel­e­vant reg­u­la­tions with offi­cial acknowl­edge­ment from the CAAC for com­mer­cial oper­a­tions.

Brazil and Chi­na have signed coop­er­a­tion agree­ments to strength­en the part­ner­ship between the two coun­tries in civ­il avi­a­tion, advanc­ing safe­ty, effi­cien­cy and sus­tain­abil­i­ty in air­wor­thi­ness cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process­es. 

In August 2024, CAAC and ANAC sub­scribed a revised ver­sion of air­wor­thi­ness imple­men­ta­tion pro­ce­dures for the mutu­al val­i­da­tion of air­craft, facil­i­tat­ing the approval process for civ­il avi­a­tion prod­ucts as well as its import and export between Chi­na and Brazil.

Both par­ties also agreed upon a Coop­er­a­tion Roadmap, to pro­mote and deep­en coop­er­a­tion in air­wor­thi­ness cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, aim­ing to deep­en exchanges and coop­er­a­tion in new tech­nol­o­gy air­craft cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, air­wor­thi­ness cer­ti­fi­ca­tion leg­is­la­tion, and air­wor­thi­ness cer­ti­fi­ca­tion train­ing.

As for the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of EH216‑S pilot­less eVTOL in Brazil, ANAC and CAAC are cur­rent­ly in dis­cus­sion for under­stand­ing the reg­u­la­to­ry mod­el adopt­ed by the state of design and applic­a­ble reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works for the oper­a­tion of this new tech­nol­o­gy air­craft sys­tem in Brazil.

EHang has main­tained close com­mu­ni­ca­tion with ANAC on EH216‑S pilot­less eVTOL spec­i­fi­ca­tions, its cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process, and applic­a­ble reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments for its oper­a­tion in Brazil.

In Novem­ber 2023, a del­e­ga­tion of ANAC, joined by CAAC, vis­it­ed EHang facil­i­ties in Guangzhou, Chi­na for a first-hand look at the Com­pa­ny and its UAM tech­nol­o­gy plat­form.

Dur­ing the vis­it, EHang’s Founder, Chair­man and CEO, Huazhi Hu, pre­sent­ed the EH216‑S and its Type Cer­tifi­cate to the del­e­ga­tion, while dis­cussing how the com­pa­ny could sup­port ANAC’s vision and plans for devel­op­ing Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty in Brazil.