Paris - Britain, Germany and Turkey said Sunday they were temporarily grounding their Airbus A400M military transport planes after one crashed near Seville airport in southern Spain during a test flight.
France, which has six of the planes, said it would only carry out "top priority flights" with A400M until more facts emerge on what caused the accident.
The wave of groundings prompted Spain's Defence Minister Pedro Morenes, speaking at an EU meeting in western France, to urge countries not to make "hasty conclusions" before the investigation into the crash was complete.
"One must not fall into easy criticism of a company which has shown itself to be extremely dynamic and competitive," Morenes said.
At least four people were killed Saturday when an A400M crashed in the first fatal incident involving the new troop and vehicle transporter manufactured by European aerospace group Airbus.
A spokesman for the German armed forces told AFP they had decided to "suspend until further notice the test flights of the German defence forces' sole A400M."
The spokesman added that "since its delivery in December the plane "has been in the air on a regular basis".
"Now we are awaiting results from Airbus on why the A400M crashed near Seville. We are in constant contact with Airbus."
AFP
