Recently, flutter active control using linear parameter varying (LPV) framework has attracted a lot of attention. LPV control synthesis usually generates controllers that are at least of the same order as the aeroelastic models. Therefore, the reduced-order model is required by synthesis for avoidance of large computation cost and high-order controller. This paper proposes a new procedure for generation of accurate reduced-order linear time-invariant (LTI) models by using system identification from flutter testing data. The proposed approach is in two steps. The well-known poly-reference least squares complex frequency (p-LSCF) algorithm is firstly employed for modal parameter identification from frequency response measurement. After parameter identification, the dominant physical modes are determined by clear stabilization diagrams and clustering technique. In the second step, with prior knowledge of physical poles, the improved frequencydomain maximum likelihood (ML) estimator is presented for building accurate reduced-order model. Before ML estimation, an improved subspace identification considering the poles constraint is also proposed for initializing the iterative procedure. Finally, the performance of the proposed procedure is validated by real flight flutter test data. (C) 2016 Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.