A BBC documentary raising doubts about the Eurofighter's performance and value for money was attacked by industry leaders in Lancashire today.

Last night's Panorama programme into the £42 billion fighter on which thousands of local jobs depend questioned its abilities and criticised the spiralling costs in the early years of the project.

Doubts were also cast on the export potential of the Eurofighter and its ability to minimise radar detection.

But British Aerospace bosses in Lancashire today reacted strongly.

"It was not balanced and contained major inaccuracies about the Eurofighter programme," said a spokesman.

"The aircraft is without doubt a success story having launch customers for 620 aircraft. It will give four European nations a world class fighter that will outperform all the competition with the exception of the much more expensive F22. "Eurofighter provides 90 per cent of the F22's capabilities at less than half the cost."

The company also stressed that the four partner nations in the project had examined it on many occasions and were convinced it was the "right choice, at the right price, in the right timescale."

The Ministry of Defence and BAe were furious the Panorama programme went ahead while a complaint about a Newsnight report into the fighter is still outstanding. They strongly refuted claims made in the programme.

The MoD wrote to Panorama and BBC director-general John Birt on Friday declining an offer to take part in the programme.

"We are always keen to be involved in any issues regarding Eurofighter but obviously we want a balanced view put across and we are not convinced that will happen," said an MoD spokesman.

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