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May 13, 2015

Airbus Holds First A400M Test Flight Since Crash

Airbus on Tuesday carried out the first test flight of a new A400M since one of the military transport planes crashed in Spain over the weekend, killing four people.
In a sign of the company's confidence in the plane, the boss of Airbus Military Fernando Alonso was onboard the test flight, which took off from the company's Toulouse, France headquarters bound for Seville.
The A400M behaved normally, all scheduled tests were carried out.
The huge transport plane landed at Seville airport at 4:35 p.m (1435 GMT) after doing a loop above the runway.
The A400M that crashed in a field and burst into flames just north of Seville's airport was several minutes into a test flight, and due to be delivered to Turkey in July.
Earlier Tuesday, Spain became the fifth country to ground its A400Ms awaiting for the causes of the accident to become clearer, following similar decisions by Britain, Germany, Turkey and Malaysia.
France, which has six of the planes in active operation, said it would only carry out the most pressing flights until more facts emerge on why the plane went down.
Spanish authorities on Sunday located the two cockpit recorders and handed them over to the judge investigating the cause of the accident.

The plane experienced multiple engine failure, according to a report in German newsweekly Der Spiegel, which cited comments from one of the crash survivors.
A total of 174 A400M planes have been ordered by eight nations, which are seeking to replace their ageing Hercules fleets.
About 20 of the planes are currently on the assembly line in different stages of production.
There are a total of 12 A400M planes currently in service — in addition to the six operated by France, Britain and Turkey have two each and Malaysia and Germany both have one.
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