Airbus A400M military transporter crashes on test flight, killing four

SEVILLE, Spain (Reuters) — An Airbus A400M military transport plane crashed outside Seville on Saturday, killing four test crew and prompting Britain and Germany to ground Europe's new troop and cargo carrier.

The aircraft was due to be delivered to another NATO customer, Turkey, and was on its maiden test flight when it crashed in a field one mile (1.6 km) north of Seville's San Pablo airport. It was the first ever crash of an A400M.

Airbus said four Spanish employees had been killed and two surviving crew were in hospital in serious condition.

The newspaper El Pais said the crew had detected a fault and asked permission to land, but hit an electricity pylon while attempting an emergency landing.

Tracking data from the Flightradar24 website indicated the plane had wheeled to the left before coming down.

An Airbus spokesman declined to comment on possible causes. Airbus said it had sent a team to investigate.

The crash delivers a fresh blow to Europe's largest defence project, which is still struggling to overcome delays and cost overruns that led to a bailout by European governments in 2010.

Britain and Germany said they were suspending A400M flights while they awaited more information on what caused the crash.

A plume of black smoke rose from the site, where hardly anything was left of the plane amid black, scorched earth.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, speaking to journalists near the site, asked for maximum transparency from Airbus on the reasons for the crash.

"An incident like this is not the best for our industry ... It remains to be seen if it was purely circumstantial or if a mistake was made," he said, adding that the Spanish defence minister would meet his German and French counterparts on Sunday to discuss the incident.