A pioneer drawn by a Frenchman

On 26 October 1968 a small twin turboprop lifted off from São José dos Campos, flew for about 50 minutes and landed to applause. It carried the military designation YC-95, and it had been designed not by a Brazilian but by Max Holste, a French engineer who had left France for Brazil in 1964 after selling his Broussard there. Construction of the prototype was supervised by a young air force engineer, Ozires Silva. The aircraft became the EMB 110 Bandeirante, Portuguese for pioneer, and a company had to be created to build it. Embraer was founded on 19 August 1969, with Silva as its first president.

Brazil’s national champion

Embraer was a creature of Brazil’s military government, a state-owned national champion set up beside the aeronautical institute, ITA, that had been training engineers in São José dos Campos since 1950. It sold only at home until 1975. It learned by licence: the Italian MB-326 jet trainer became the AT-26 Xavante, and from 1974 nearly 2,500 Piper light aircraft were built in Brazil. It also designed the Ipanema crop-sprayer, first flown in 1970 and still in production, with 1,700 delivered by 2025. In 2004 an Ipanema became the first ethanol-powered aircraft to be certified.

Ryanair, the RAF and the Tucano

The Bandeirante found customers far from Brazil, roughly 500 of them in all. On 8 July 1985 a 15-seat example flew from Waterford to Gatwick on the first service of a tiny Irish start-up called Ryanair; cabin crew had to be short to work in the cramped cabin. The Tucano trainer, first flown in 1980, did even better: in 1985 the Royal Air Force chose a licence-built version, and Short Brothers in Belfast won a contract for 130. Embraer built 637 Tucanos of its own, plus 727 EMB 120 Brasilia commuter airliners.

Near bankruptcy, then the jet

Then the money ran out. Brazil’s lost decade of hyperinflation coincided with the CBA 123 Vector, a high-tech turboprop built with Argentina, of which only two flew. Embraer was put up for privatisation in 1992 and sold on 7 December 1994, close to bankruptcy, with the government keeping a golden share. The workforce was cut from about 9,000 to about 6,000. The rescue came from a stretched Brasilia with jet engines: the ERJ 145 flew on 11 August 1995, and 1,231 ERJs were built. Canada cried foul, and the World Trade Organization found that both Brazil and Canada had illegally subsidised their regional jet makers.

E-Jets, Phenoms and a raid in Ecuador

The 70 to 120-seat E-Jet followed, first flying on 19 February 2002; by May 2024 Embraer had delivered its 1,800th. In 2000 the company turned an ERJ into the Legacy business jet, then designed the Phenom 100 and the Phenom 300, by 2026 the best-selling light jet for 14 years running. The Super Tucano gave it a combat record. In 2008, during Operation Phoenix, a Colombian Super Tucano dropped laser-guided bombs on a FARC camp inside Ecuador, killing the guerrilla commander Raúl Reyes and triggering a diplomatic crisis. From 2016 the type flew close air support for the Afghan Air Force.

Bribes and a jilted Boeing

Two episodes stung. On 24 October 2016 Embraer settled US charges that it had paid bribes to win government aircraft contracts in the Dominican Republic, Saudi Arabia, Mozambique and India; the US Justice Department, the SEC and Brazilian authorities together collected about 225 million dollars. And on 5 July 2018 Boeing agreed to take 80 per cent of Embraer’s airliner business, a reply to Airbus taking over Bombardier’s CSeries. In April 2020, battered by the pandemic and the 737 MAX grounding, Boeing walked away. Arbitration ended in September 2024 with Boeing paying Embraer 150 million dollars.

Record backlog

Embraer emerged the stronger. Its C-390 Millennium military transport first flew on 3 February 2015 and has been ordered by Portugal, Hungary, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, South Korea and others, a rare Brazilian win in NATO hangars. In March 2026 it rolled out the first Gripen fighter assembled in Brazil under a 2014 technology-transfer deal with Sweden. In 2025 it delivered 244 aircraft, 78 airliners and 155 business jets among them, posted record revenue of 7.58 billion dollars and ended the year with a record backlog of 31.6 billion dollars.

Fábricas

• São José dos Campos · São José dos Campos, São Paulo — Headquarters and main production base, next to the ITA aeronautical institute
• Gavião Peixoto · Gavião Peixoto, São Paulo — Production base in São Paulo state
• Botucatu (Neiva) · Botucatu, São Paulo — Former Neiva works, acquired 1980; Ipanema production and components
• Melbourne, Florida · Melbourne Orlando International Airport, Florida, United States — Opened 2011; first Embraer final assembly line in the US, building Phenoms and Praetors
• Jacksonville · Jacksonville, Florida, United States — A-29 Super Tucano assembly with Sierra Nevada Corporation
• OGMA · Alverca do Ribatejo, Portugal — Maintenance, repair and component manufacturing subsidiary
• Harbin Embraer · Harbin, China — Joint venture from 2002 building ERJs for China; concluded 2016 after nearly 40 aircraft

Pessoas

• Ozires Silva · founder and first president — Air force engineer born 1931 in Bauru; supervised the Bandeirante prototype
• Max Holste · French engineer, lead designer of the Bandeirante — Moved to Brazil in 1964; returned to France in 1995 and died in 1998
• José Mariotto Ferreira · test pilot — Flew the Bandeirante prototype on its first flight, 26 October 1968
• Maurício Botelho · chief executive after privatisation — Succeeded by Frederico Curado in 2007
• Francisco Gomes Neto · president and CEO

Recordes e pioneirismos

• Third-largest producer of civil aircraft after Boeing and Airbus
• Ipanema: first ethanol-powered aircraft to be certified, 19 October 2004
• Bandeirante: aircraft on which Ryanair flew its first service, 8 July 1985
• Record backlog of 31.6 billion dollars at end 2025