Aviation

Germany's air force has temporarily grounded its sole Airbus A400M until an investigation determines the cause of the crash of a plane of the same type in Spain, a military spokesman said May 10.
 

At least four people were killed when an Airbus A400M military plane crashed near Seville airport in southern Spain during a test flight, the first fatal incident involving the new transport craft.

An Airbus A400M military plane crashed into a field 1.6 kilometers north of San Pablo airport in Seville in southern Spain on May 9 while apparently on a test flight, officials said.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said between eight and 10 people were on board, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported. The prime minister's office could not confirm the comments.

The latest data recovered by the Germanwings flight’s black box sheds new light to what might have happened.

According to the Daily Mail, the French experts’ data publicized on Wednesday has evidence that Andreas Lubitz tried to recover manual control of the aircraft, shortly before the crash.

A fire has left the main airport in Rome - Fiumicino closed for an indefinite term.

The incident occurred on Wednesday around 5pm and the fire left the main terminal in Rome closed for international flights.

No material damages have been reported yet. Some of the airport employees have been affected by the heavy smoke, as reported by airport officials.

Airbus and the Turkish Air Force signed a letter of intent on May 6 to begin the certification of the Air Supply and Maintenance center in the central Anatolian province of Kayseri as a regional maintenance hub for CN-235 aircraft.

The CN-235 is a medium-range twin-engine transport plane used for military activities, including maritime patrol, surveillance and air transport.

Airbus aims to strike a new sales deal for its A400M military aircraft this year and hopes it will bolster interest in the delay-plagued transporter, a senior executive from its defense division said.

Several buyers, including Turkey and Germany, have expressed frustration at repeated delays in deliveries of the heavy cargo and troop carrier, Europe's largest defense project.

The co-pilot who is believed to have deliberately crashed a Germanwings jet in the French Alps may have "rehearsed" steering the plane into a rapid descent on an earlier flight, German daily Bild reported May 6.

German airline Lufthansa said on May 5 it flew back into the black in the first three months of the year, powered particularly by the good performance of its Swiss and Lufthansa Cargo subsidiaries.

Lufthansa said in a statement it booked a net profit of 425 million euros ($473 million) in the period from January to March, compared with a loss of 252 million euros a year earlier.

President Francois Hollande and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani signed on May 4 a 6.3 billion euro ($7.02 billion) agreement for the sale of 24 Dassault Aviation-built Rafale fighter jets.