Four Were Fatally Injured, Many Aircraft Grounded

Several countries have grounded their Airbus A400M fleets as a result of an accident late last week involving the military transport plane.

The accident has also caused the company's stock to fall about 2.1 percent on Monday.

The U.K. newspaper The Globe and Mail reports that France said it would continue to fly the aircraft, but Britain, Germany, Malaysia, and Turkey had all grounded their fleets. The German publication Der Spiegel reported that one of the survivors had said there the A400M had experienced problems with "multiple" engines shortly after takeoff, but there has been no official report of data from the airplane's cockpit data or voice recorders. A spokeswoman for Airbus said "we have to wait for the results of the investigation."

Airbus Group CEO Tom Enders said in a letter to employees seen by Reuters that the company would resume flight testing on Tuesday. The plane has been beset by multiple delays over the course of its development, and the Hamburg stockbroker Berenberg said in a memo that the accident could have an adverse effect on Airbus' ability "to sell A400M in the export markets, the only way this program will ever make any money."

(Image from file)

FMI: www.airbus.com