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Amid all the fanfare and celebration earlier this week at Bombardier Inc.’s Mirabel, Que., plant for the first flight of the CSeries, something very unusual happened.

Despite nearly 3,000 employees, guests and media in attendance, a large portion of the crowd almost missed the new plane’s takeoff after it crept up the runway unbeknownst to many before it was almost in the sky.

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It wasn’t until a reporter pointed out the CSeries’ fin moving behind a grassy knoll seconds before takeoff that it caught the eyes of most of those assembled.

“It is extremely, extremely quiet. Some of the people actually missed the beginning of the flight because we took off a little early,” admitted Rob Dewar, Bombardier vice-president and general manager of the CSeries program, after the flight.

“I think it was the first time we’ve been early in the program,” he joked.

While it will take weeks for Bombardier to assess the data from the CSeries’ maiden voyage, and months to prove out the plane’s promises, one thing did become clear Monday at first flight — the CSeries is the quietest commercial jet in the sky.