The Ministry of Defense, headed by socialist Margarita Robles, decided to contract worth more than three billion euros, 3,120 to be exact, to manufacture a Turkish aircraft to replace the current F5 aircraft that perform this mission. … Training of Spanish fighter and attack pilots, technically called the “New Advanced Trainer for the Army Air and Space”.
This hiring and this purchasing Decided on June 27, 2025 It was announced in her appearance before the Senate by Minister Robles herself, who provided details of the investment, timeline and structure of the program with Turkish industrial participation.
As ABC has been able to verify from various documents and from completely reliable sources within the Ministry itself and the military industry, the decision to lease Turkish aircraft was made without any prior formal request for offers from potential competitors, no competitive process or technical or economic comparison with other alternatives, and no independent studies produced. There are no general selection criteriaNor was there any comparative analysis of other offers of a different type. Rather, the contract was done unilaterally by the Ministry of Defense.
In the above-mentioned contract, the usual procedure of selection, public display or competition of an aircraft model, corresponding to a process of this type, was not followed, and for this reason it was chosen politically but not technically by decision of the government of Pedro Sánchez. It happens that this appointment was made shortly after a meeting between the Prime Minister himself and Turkish President Erdogan, who has been subjected to international condemnation on numerous occasions for leading a dictatorial and authoritarian regime.
There was no choice
After a meeting between Sánchez and Erdogan held in Moncloa, and without any selection process or prior public offer, the government decided to purchase the prototype of the above-mentioned aircraft called the Hürjet, the manufacture of which had not even begun in Turkey and of which only two of the four models required by the contract had been delivered at this stage and which Turkey had to make operational.
The Huryet is an aircraft designed to replace the current, now obsolete F5. Initially, the value of the project was 1.375 million euros, but successive fluctuations in the contract have already raised this cost to 3.120 million euros, so that 45 aircraft, out of an initial 18 aircraft, must be delivered to the Air Force, in a period extending until 2028.
Initially, the program was awarded $1.375 million, but for various reasons it has already reached $3.120
It also happens that the decision was taken after the international consortium of which Airbus is part has already initiated an agreement in principle with the Italian company Leonardo to purchase training aircraft for Spanish pilots. However, the government decided to suspend the aforementioned negotiations and said to start contracting to reset it and begin contracting for the Turkish plane. We must remember that Türkiye does not represent any military force in this sense, nor is it considered a leading military reference in manufacturing and promoting this type of aircraft.
The decision to suspend the premiere that was already underway between Leonardo and Airbus was a result of the government’s decision to extend the 2023 budgets until 2024, since this program This was not expected in the 2023 budget. In principle, a new proposal was expected to be issued in the last quarter of 2024 with the aim of obtaining a competitive offer that would lead to a substantive contract for the delivery of aircraft and simulators in 2028. However, Airbus was “invited” to break the above-mentioned agreement that it signed with Leonardo, the Italian manufacturer, which has several records of international standing in the military field making it one of the leaders in the sector.
In this way, according to the documents that ABC was able to consult and the numerous sources from the military industry consulted by this newspaper, the Turkish aircraft selection process is full of potential irregularities. Among other things, failure to respect European competition standards in contracting for defense programmes; Airbus was forced to violate an agreement it had previously signed with the Italian company Leonardo; It was asked or forced to form a temporary consortium of companies to present the program as a national development program and Spain was placed outside mandatory European regulations in this type of contracting.
Integrated system
The employment of the Turkish Huryet aircraft responds to the commitment to provide the Air and Space Army with an integrated training system that will allow future Spanish fighter and attack pilots to continue receiving high-quality education, adapted to increasingly complex and demanding scenarios. In the aforementioned appearance of Minister Robles, at the time, she justified leasing Turkish aircraft by the necessity of leasing an aircraft whose goal is to “provide a safe, profitable, and effective training environment that complements aviation training.” In short, it was a matter of moving forward by “looking for and obtaining a system to replace the current F5 for pilot training.”
However, in the above appearance, Robles did not refer to the fact that the contracting for the Turkish aircraft was done without any kind of competition, prior offer or comparison with other potential prototypes, nor that the acquisition was made outright.
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