CASA C-212 Aviocar C-212-400 (serie 400)

The C-212-400 flew on 4 April 1997 and replaced the 300 series on the line from 1998, the year of its Spanish certification. The engines became Garrett TPE331-12JR-701C of 690 kW, with better hot-and-high performance; the avionics, which until then lived under the cabin floor, moved to the nose; and the flight deck gained an electronic flight instrument system with four displays and a flight management system. The round windows gave way to square ones, the same as on the CN-235 and C-295, to cut costs, and the side nose baggage compartment of the 300 series disappeared.

The 400 series never reached the volume of its predecessors. In 2006 the Brazilian Air Force chose it to replace its Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirantes, intending to assemble it at Campo de Marte with an initial order of fifty aircraft and thirty more to follow, but nothing came of it. The last European sales were one C-212-400MP to the South Korean Coast Guard and three to the Vietnamese Marine Police.

The end came through industrial arithmetic. In July 2010 the chief executive of Airbus Military admitted the company could no longer afford to build the C-212 in Europe: output at Seville had fallen to four aircraft in two years. In December 2012 the last Spanish-assembled Aviocar was delivered, to the Vietnam Coast Guard.