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| Airbus military plane crashes near Spain's Seville airport | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: 9 May 2015, 11:28 PM (75 Views) | |
| skibboy | 9 May 2015, 11:28 PM Post #1 |
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Airbus military plane crashes near Spain's Seville airport 6 hours ago At least four people have been killed in a military plane crash near Seville airport in Spain. The plane, a new Airbus A400M, reportedly developed a fault just after take-off on a test flight. Local media say that those on board were Spanish Airbus employees. Two have also been seriously injured. Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has expressed his sorrow over the incident which took place about 1.6km (1 mile) away from San Pablo airport. Local media say that the plane had signalled that there was a fault with its systems just before the crash. ![]() ![]() One of the rescuers has said that some of the plane had been turned to "ash" ![]() The plane reportedly hit an electric power line The plane reportedly hit an electric power line as the pilots tried to make an emergency landing. The survivors have been taken to hospital by helicopter. A Spanish interior ministry spokesman told The Associated press news agency that one person had been conscious when they were taken out of the wreckage. Mr Rajoy said the government was ready to support the families of all of those involved in the accident. The accident took place in a field just north of San Pablo airport. According to local media, the crash site is close to the Airbus manufacturing plant which assembles the planes. The Airbus A400M plane model is not yet used by the Spanish military. It is a large transport aircraft that has been ordered by eight countries including Spain to replace a fleet of ageing Hercules aircraft. ![]() The survivors have been taken to hospital by helicopter Airbus has said that the plane that crashed had been ordered by Turkey. Local media report that the Spanish government has also agreed to buy 27 of the planes, with the first one due to be delivered to the military next year. The British Ministry of Defence has temporarily suspended use of its two A400M aircraft, as a precaution. Source:
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| skibboy | 10 May 2015, 11:35 PM Post #2 |
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10 May 2015 Spain hails passersby who helped military air crash survivors © AFP | The wreckage of an Airbus A400M military transport plane smoulders after it crashed in a field near Seville, in southern Spain, on May 9, 2015 MADRID (AFP) - Spanish authorities on Sunday hailed as heroes three people who helped rescue two survivors from an Airbus A400M military plane crash near Seville airport that killed four people the previous day. "Talking with Manuel, the farmer who saved the injured of the A400M crash in Seville. A hero for all of us," Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy wrote in a Twitter message alongside a photo of him meeting with one of the three rescuers. Manuel and two other people who were near Seville airport when the military plane crashed Saturday during a test flight with six people on board rushed to the scene and helped pull the two survivors from the windows of the plane, according to Spanish media reports. The pair was taken to hospital with serious injuries. "What we have to do during times like this is acknowledge the... attitude of these three citizens, which must be recognised by society," the head of the regional government of Andalusia, Susana Diaz, told reporters. The plane was one of the new A400M troop and vehicle transporters manufactured by European aerospace group Airbus. It is the first accident involving the plane, which is assembled at a factory in Seville, since it went into service. The first A400M was delivered to France in 2013, with subsequent planes sold to Turkey, Britain, Germany and Malaysia. The A400M programme has been beset by problems since it was launched in 2003. Following the crash, Spanish political parties announced suspension of their campaigning for May 24 regional elections out of respect for the victims. Rajoy, who received the news on a campaign visit to Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands, visited the crash scene on Saturday. Source:
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| skibboy | 10 May 2015, 11:44 PM Post #3 |
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10 May 2015 Black boxes of crashed A400M plane found in Spain, aircraft grounded MADRID (AFP) - Spanish authorities on Sunday found the two cockpit recorders of the Airbus A400M military plane that crashed near Seville airport, killing four people, as Britain, Germany and Turkey grounded their models of the aircraft. The recorders were found at the scene of Saturday's crash and turned over to the judge who is leading the judicial investigation into the accident, the public works ministry said in a statement. The military transport plane crashed in a field and burst into flames just north of Seville's airport after hitting a power line during an apparent attempt at an emergency landing. Four people on board died while another two, a mechanic and an engineer, were taken to hospital where they are listed in serious but stable condition. Dozens of investigators, some wearing a protective white suit, scoured the crash scene on Sunday for clues into the cause of the accident. Aircraft manufacturers equip all their planes with two black boxes - a flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder. The flight data recorder records a stream of flight information such as altitude and air speed, while the cockpit voice recorder stores conversations and other noises made in the cockpit. The plane, due for delivery to the Turkish air force in June, was one of the new A400M troop and vehicle transporters manufactured by European aerospace group Airbus. The crash was the first involving one of the aircraft, which Airbus assembles at a plant in Seville. Britain, Germany and Turkey said they would temporarily stop flying their A400M transport planes until the causes of the accident were known. France, the largest operator of A400Ms, said it was not grounding its planes at this point. "We have no reason to lead us to stop our A400 fleet," said Colonel Jean-Pascal Breton, head of the press service of the French air force. Malaysia, which received its first A400M plane in March, has not yet announced its position. There are a total of 12 A400M planes in use at the moment -- France has six, Britain and Turkey have two each and Malaysia and Germany each have one. - Beset by problems - The Spanish government said it would form a joint commission involving the budget and defence ministries to investigate the accident, which is also being probed by Spain's Guardia Civil police. Airbus Defence and Space, the division responsible for military aircraft, sent a team of experts to the crash scene to help with the investigation. The A400M programme has been beset by problems since it was launched in 2003. In addition to production and delivery delays, the programme ran 30 percent -- or 6.2 billion euros ($7 billion) -- over budget. In 2010, Airbus mulled scrapping the entire project amid doubts about its financial viability. In the end the programme was maintained, but not without renewed troubles. Shortly after Germany took delivery of its first A400M last January -- four years late -- Der Spiegel published a list of 875 construction errors or malfunctions detected in the plane. In January, Airbus CEO Tom Enders offered an apology to British officials for continued delays to seven A400M aircraft earmarked for delivery in 2015. He described industrial reasons for the delays as "not catastrophic" but sufficiently "embarrassing" to merit remedial measures. Airbus -- which was previously forced to set aside 551 million euros from 2014 earnings to pay for continued delays -- has yet to reveal a promised new delivery schedule for A400M planes. Speaking to Spanish public television during events commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Lorient, western France, Spanish Defence Minister Pedro Morenes defended the A400M project. "We have the best engineers, a huge capacity for design, we have phenomenal companies and I think this is something that needs to be investigated but the A400M is a top-notch plane," he said. A total of 174 A400M planes have been ordered, including 50 by France, 53 by Germany, 27 by Spain and 22 by Britain. by Daniel Silva Source:
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| skibboy | 10 Jun 2015, 11:26 PM Post #4 |
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Fatal A400M crash linked to data-wipe mistake By Leo Kelion Technology desk editor 9 hours ago ![]() Three of four propeller engines malfunctioned, causing an A400M aircraft to crash in May A military plane crash in Spain was probably caused by computer files being accidentally wiped from three of its engines, according to investigators. Plane-maker Airbus discovered anomalies in the A400M's data logs after the crash, suggesting a software fault. And it has now emerged that Spanish investigators suspect files needed to interpret its engine readings had been deleted by mistake. This would have caused the affected propellers to spin too slowly. The aeroplane crashed near Seville, during a test flight on 9 May, killing four crew members on board. Several countries that had already accepted deliveries of the plane - including the UK - grounded them following the accident. However, Airbus has announced it plans to fly one of its own A400M aircraft at the Paris Air Show next week. ![]() Two pilots and two test engineers were killed in the crash last month "We have complete confidence in the A400M, and we are delighted to fly our demo as planned," said Airbus executive Fernando Alonso in a statement. Stuck in idle The latest revelations about the investigation were first reported by the Reuters news agency. It said the focus of the inquiry was a theory that files known as "torque calibration parameters" had been accidentally deleted during a software installation process ahead of the plane's first flight. A source later confirmed this to the BBC. The control systems of the A400M aircraft are heavily automated. Each engine is run by a separate computer called an Electronic Control Unit. The ECUs take the pilot's inputs and make the engines they control respond in the optimum way. The parameter files are used by the ECUs to interpret sensor readings about the turning force generated by each engine - the torque - which is used to make the attached propellers spin. Without the files, the ECUs cannot make sense of this data. This would explain why three of the plane's four engines did not respond properly to the crew's attempts to adjust their power settings shortly after take-off. Airbus has already confirmed that its pilots had tried switching the malfunctioning engines into "flight idle" mode - their lowest power setting - in an attempt to tackle the problem. ![]() The pilots were unable to bring three of the engines back out of "idle mode" Without the parameter files, the engines would have been left stuck in this mode. This is because the planes were deliberately designed to prevent out-of-control engines powering back up, to avoid them causing other problems. It was not foreseen that three propellers would be affected simultaneously, making it impossible to keep the plane airborne. "We are working closely with the official investigation, and we will act in accordance with the information that is discovered but are not able to discuss the findings," a spokesman for Airbus told the BBC. Spain's Ministry of Defence, which is leading the investigation, has said it is not permitted to discuss the matter. Grounded planes A400M planes were created to give Europe's Nato partners independent access to heavy aircraft to transport troops and large weaponry. The UK, France, Malaysia, Turkey and Germany have already taken deliveries of the plane. ![]() Airbus is still trying to attract further orders of the A400M The accident involved a model built for the Turkish Air Force. While the investigation continues, Spain has prohibited Airbus from flying other new A400M planes, meaning it cannot carry out the test flights required for dozens of uncompleted orders. The longer the inquiry continues, the greater the financial consequences will be, as Airbus will not be paid until those deliveries occur. Airbus was already under pressure because the A400M project is years behind schedule and hugely over budget. The company can, however, continue to fly its own existing "development" A400M aircraft. It will be one of these planes that appears at the air show in Le Bourget next week. Source:
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| skibboy | 12 Jun 2015, 12:50 AM Post #5 |
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12 June 2015 Spain allows A400M test flights to resume after deadly crash © AFP/File | An Airbus A400M aircraft takes off from the southwestern French city of Toulouse on May 12, 2015 MADRID (AFP) - Spain on Thursday said test flights of Airbus A400M military planes that have already rolled off the assembly line could resume, after suspending them in May following a crash that killed four people. Airbus executives met with Spain's National Institute of Aerospace Technology on Thursday to discuss resuming flights after one of the massive transport planes crashed during a test on May 9 near Seville, killing four of the six people on board and seriously injuring the two others. "After the meeting the decision was made" to reauthorise test flights by prototype A400M planes that have already left the assembly line, the defence ministry said in a statement. But A400M models that are still in production have not been given the green light to take off. "We're waiting for Airbus to bring us new data," a defence ministry spokesman told AFP. "Further meetings will be held in the coming days" on this matter to achieve "maximum safety guarantees for flights by these planes," the ministry said. The A400M, a large, propeller-driven transport aircraft, was launched in 2003 to respond to the needs of seven NATO members -- Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain and Turkey -- with Malaysia joining in 2005. Britain, Germany, Turkey and Malaysia joined Spain in grounding their A400M planes, which are assembled in the southern Spanish city of Seville, after the May 9 crash. An initial analysis of the black boxes revealed that three of the aircraft's four engines failed, Airbus has said. Airbus said Tuesday it would still be able to deliver between 13 and 17 A400Ms if it got approval to resume test flights soon. "The assembly line is still rolling and the planes are parked in Seville awaiting flight authorisation," said Fernando Alonso, head of Airbus' military aircraft division in Europe. "We now need to convince Spain's defence management that the measures taken by Airbus are sufficient." The crash is only the latest trial for the troubled A400M programme, which was plagued by development setbacks that led to years of delays and costly overruns. The first aircraft was delivered in 2013, and a total of 174 have been ordered. The aircraft programme has now cost 28 billion euros ($31.6 billion) compared to 20 billion euros ($22.5 billion) originally. Source:
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