Austrian Eurofighter grounded at Innsbruck

[Tintin]

http://www.thelocal.at/20141008/cripple ... -innsbruck

An advanced Eurofighter aircraft which was forced to make an emergency landing on Thursday remains grounded at Innsbruck airport, guarded by military police while technicians struggle to make it airworthy again.

While on a mission last week to escort a foreign military aircraft through Austria's airspace, one of two of the high-tech fighter planes developed an engine sensor problem which forced the pilot to make an emergency landing.

According to the latest reports from the Austrian army, technicians were still busy trying to reset the plane's emergency measures subsystem with a special tool. The work was expected to take some time.

Among other problems, according to the Ministry of Defence the plane's chassis "locked" on landing, to prevent "swinging away" during the emergency landing.

Other measures need to be reset before the machine could be flown back to Zeltweg, where the plane is normally stationed.

The plane originated from its base at Zeltweg in Styria, and was flying in formation with another Eurofighter around 2:30 pm Thursday at supersonic speed with nine kilometers of altitude when an engine fire warning was triggered, forcing the emergency landing. The other Eurofighter completed the mission, and returned to base.