Brake failure grounds Eurofighter

MAKERS of the new Eurofighter-Typhoon combat plane due to be delivered to the RAF later this year have grounded the plane after a braking fault.

The aircraft, costing £57m each, were grounded after the pilot of a test plane operated by its manufacturer the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (Eads) landed at the company's Munich plant and found his brakes did not work. Eads declined to say which contractor was responsible for the faulty part.

Munich has a two-mile runway, and the test plane was able to coast safely to a stop, Eads said. Engineers worked through the weekend and have traced the problem to a faulty braking system electrical component, said Eads spokesman Wolf Hoeveler. He was unable to say when the planes would be cleared to fly again.

The fault, which Hoeveler said was a glitch, is a fresh embarrassment for the manufacturers of the RAF's first new combat plane for decades. Last month Eads, which is building the plane in partnership with Britain's BAE Systems, rebutted a claim by the German parliamentary audit commission that the planes were slower than promised, could not fly as high and were unable to fire missiles.

British contractors working on parts of the aircraft include Smiths and Ultra Electronics. Dunlop Aerospace, based in Coventry, says its braking systems division was a prime contractor.

Despite a high-profile ceremony at BAE Systems' Warton manufacturing plant in Lancashire in June, when the first of the 232 Typhoons ordered for the RAF were presented for squadron testing, the Ministry of Defence said today that MoD pilots were still not flying the planes.

After a series of delays, including a crash in Spain last November, the plane, four years late and £1bn over budget, is now scheduled to be operational with the RAF in 2006. The German air force has received four planes and Spain one.