Luftwaffe Grounds Eurofighter

The German Air Force has grounded its entire fleet of Eurofighter Typhoon fighters following the detection of glitches in the ejection seat, which, it turns out, cannot guarantee safe operation under certain conditions. Flying operations were suspended on September 15. Among the grounded aircraft will be the ones I photographed conducting training flights (see above) at the Luftwaffe's 73 Fighter Wing at Rostock-Laage airfield near Germany's Baltic coast in February. The grounding is reportedly connected with the August crash in which a Saudi pilot was killed in Spain.

The grounding comes just hours before EADS, the company that owns a controlling stake in the Eurofighter consortium, rebranded its defence business (EADS Defence & Security) as CASSIDIAN.

Photo by Shiv Aroor

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