"They're being borderline delusional if they think they're going to meet the 2015 target," Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace consultant with Fairfax, Virginia-based Teal Group, said in a telephone interview. "That's not going to happen. If it's the first half of 2016, I will call that a strategic victory." Aboulafia has more than 20 years of experience in the aerospace industry and writes reports providing forecasts of aircraft markets.

But Richard Aboulafia of aviation consultancy Teal Group in Farifax. Va., and a longtime critic of the CSeries program, was blunt and severe. "Oh right, hooray! You fire everyone associated with the program, you have this unpleasant looking accident followed by a long unexplained silence (from Bombardier after May 29) and a nasty company re-organization. But hey, you're flying again. I mean, what the hell?" Aboulafia said "at this point, you can't rule out a total program failure."

A similar Pratt engine will power the rival Airbus A320neo, but the risk of the CSeries test failure affecting the Airbus timetable is remote, said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst at the Teal Group, in Fairfax, Virginia. "Given all the testing the engine has been through, the incident is likely to be pretty minor," Aboulafia said. "But given all the headaches of the CSeries, this is another headache Bombardier doesn't need."