Spanish defence ministry says pilot of warplane killed while trying to land at Morón air base near Seville

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

A Eurofighter jet has crashed while attempting to landing at an air base in south-west Spain , killing its pilot, the defence ministry said.

"A Eurofighter crashed on landing at the start of the runway of the Moron base," near Seville, a ministry spokeswoman told AFP on Monday.

The sole pilot of the plane, an air force captain, was killed, a defence ministry spokesman said.

The Morón air base is shared by Spain and the US air force, but only Spain operates the Eurofighter jet.

The Eurofighter, a multi-purpose twin-engine fighter jet introduced in 2003, is built by a consortium made up of the British defence group BAE, the European aerospace group Airbus and the Italian defence contractor Finmeccanica.

It is designed as a highly agile multi-role aircraft, capable of ground-attack as well as its primary air defence role.

The Eurofighter consortium, Europe's largest defence programme, is in fierce competition with other fighter-jet makers such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Dassault Aviation.

Last month the head of Airbus's defence division, Bernhard Gerwert, said the consortium would stop making the Eurofighter jet in 2018 if it did not win new export contracts for the warplane.

Talks were under way to sell Eurofighter jets to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Malaysia, he said.