On 9 May 2015, an Airbus A400M Atlas military transport aircraft on a test flight crashed at La Rinconada, Spain, less than 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from Seville Airport at around 1:00 pm local time, killing 4 of the 6 crew.

[11] Tracking data from the Flightradar24 website indicated the plane had veered to the left before coming down and that it had reached a maximum altitude of 1,725 feet (526 m) before descending at a constant speed of about 160 knots (300 km/h; 180 mph).

[13] On 19 May 2015, Airbus Defence and Space requested all operators of its A400M airlifter to conduct one-time specific checks on electronic control units (ECUs) fitted to the TP400 turboprop engines on the aircraft.

Airbus said these checks were necessary to "avoid potential risks in any future flights," and added that the alert had resulted from its internal analysis and was issued as "part of the continued airworthiness activities, independently from the ongoing official investigation into the accident.

"[17] On 21 May 2015 it emerged that the secretaries of state of the A400M member countries had established a Program Monitoring Team (PMT) to analyze and judge Airbus plans to bring the A400M project back on track and to schedule visits to the final-assembly line in Seville, Spain, and other A400M-production facilities.

Christian Schott, part of Wunstorf's 10-strong operational testing and evaluation team, said, "the problems that led to the crash in Seville can be ruled out for our A400M... our aircraft has been thoroughly checked.

"[25] The first production-standard aircraft to leave the Seville final assembly line (FAL) after the 9 May grounding enacted by Spanish authorities was delivered to the French Air Force on 19 June, the day the flight suspension was lifted.

The FAL also completed four aircraft for the United Kingdom, which underwent pre-delivery checks and trials before being flown to Royal Air Force (RAF) Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.

[29] Airbus initially focused on whether the crash was caused by new management software for the engine-fuel supply, designed to trim the fuel tanks to permit the aircraft to fly certain military manoeuvres.

[17] Airbus Chief Strategy Officer Marwan Lahoud confirmed on 29 May that incorrectly installed engine control software caused the fatal crash.

"We would like to see the data and compare it with our hypothesis and proceed quickly to understand the causes of accident, so our aircraft can get back into the air," he told shareholders at the company's annual general meeting in Amsterdam on 27 May.