Airbus warns of bug that could affect A400M engines

Paris

 Airbus yesterday warned of a technical bug potentially affecting the engines of its A400M that was discovered during an internal test after one of the military planes crashed in Spain.

 The company said in a statement it had sent out an alert to its clients urging them to carry out "specific checks of the Electronic Control Units (ECU) on each of the aircraft's engines."

 The ECU controls how the aircraft's engine operates and an expert in the sector speaking on condition of anonymity said that a software bug could lead to a loss of control of engine power.

The potential flaw was uncovered during an internal analysis separate from an official investigation into the crash of an A400M cargo plane near Seville, which killed four people ten days ago.

 "To avoid potential risks in any future flights, Airbus Defence and Space has informed the operators about necessary actions to take."

 Airbus said the results of its internal test have "immediately been shared with the official investigation team."

 The crash of the A400M a few minutes into a test flight just north of Seville's airport prompted five countries -- Spain, Britain, Germany, Turkey and Malaysia -- to ground their planes pending the outcome of the probe.

 Two of the six people on board the plane, a mechanic and an engineer, survived the crash and were sent to hospital in critical condition.

  France, which has six of the planes in active service, said it would only carry out the most pressing flights until more details emerge on why the plane went down.

 In Germany, which has one A400M, the defence ministry said it was studying the Airbus alert.

 However, the ministry said Airbus could not yet establish the bug was responsible for the Seville accident as their analysis has not been compared to the data on the two black boxes.