A400M

Airbus Defence and Space’s military transport A400M aircraft will proceed with its planned flight tests despite a crash in Spain last week, which killed four flight test engineers and left two injured.

The company intends to resume A400M flight testing today, and will fly an A400M from Toulouse to Seville with its military aircraft executive vice-president Fernando Alonso on-board.

Airbus Group CEO Tom Enders was reported by Reuters as saying in a letter that resuming flight tests would demonstrate A400M’s customers that the company is committed to the transport aircraft programme.

Said to be Europe’s largest defence project, the A400M suffered an accident near Sevilla Airport, southern Spain minutes after taking off for its first production flight.

"Said to be Europe’s largest defence project, the A400M suffered an accident near Sevilla Airport, southern Spain minutes after taking off for its first production flight."

An investigation team-led by the Spanish air-accident authority, CIAIAC, has recovered the black boxes flight recorders, which are yet to be analysed.

A source close to the investigation said that engines are one of the key areas of the probe.

Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine reported that the A400M suffered multiple engine failure during the flight.

The €20bn A400M programme is backed by seven European Nato member countries, including Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain and Turkey.

Airbus had put the A400M into service in 2013, and has so far delivered 12 aircraft of the 174 on order.


Image: A A400M showing its counter-rotating propellers on each wing. Photo: courtesy of Curimedia / Wikipedia.