Cubana de Aviación Flight 389

Flight 389 was preparing for departure. During the first engine start, a pneumatic valve was blocked. The problem was rectified and two engines were started with ground power. During its taxi, the third engine was started. Flight 389 later obtained their take-off clearance and started their roll. The first and the second take-off attempt failed. It then attempted its third take-off. When Flight 389 reached V_R speed, the nose of the aircraft wouldn't rotate (lift). The crew initiated a rejected take-off procedure, but the aircraft overran the runway, narrowly missed the heavily traveled Tufiño avenue at the end of the airport runway into the middle-class El Rosario residential neighborhood, slammed into a wall, clipped an auto mechanic shop, smashed into two houses and plowed into a soccer field. At the time, many people including children were playing on the field. The aircraft exploded and burst into flames.[10]

Rescuers reached the crash site and started to evacuate survivors from the crash site. Explosions could be heard repeatedly after the crash. Firefighters jets of water on the smoking ruins to prevent additional explosions and local authorities cordoned off the crash site and searched for missing local residents. Many people on the ground went missing in the crash. A mother stated that her three children were missing after the crash. 26 injured people were rushed to three hospitals, with 15 of them to the Quito Metropolitan Hospital. Survivors stated that some doors on the plane wouldn't open after impact and several survivors escaped from the fiery wreckage through a hole in the fuselage. Several people jumped from the plane while they were on fire. On Sunday, 30 August, Ecuadorian Red Cross stated that as many as 77 badly burned bodies have been recovered from the crash site. Five children playing on the field were killed as the plane plowed onto them.[1]

The concerns about the airport's location and its danger were not without merit or merely a consequence of the Cubana accident. On 18 September 1984, AECA Flight 767-103 also overran the runway after a failed takeoff, slamming into several houses at the end of the runway 17 (start of runway 35), opposite to where the Cubana plane would crash 14 years later. The crash killed the four crewmembers and almost 50 people in the ground.

Two years before the CU389, and in a similar fashion, on 1 May 1996 an overloaded Fly Linhas Aéreas Boeing 727, which carried the Brazilian Corinthians football team to Portovelo (and also with a stopover at Guayaquil) had also overran runway 35 (start of runway 17) after a rejected take-off in rainy conditions, hit the ILS installation, went down a slope or embankment, hit the airport perimeter wall and came to rest between the Tufiño avenue and the airport terrain. There were no fatalities among the 79 passengers and 11 crew, but six people were injured and the plane was written off. [12][13][14]

The plane's mechanical fitness was initially questioned,[4] as at that time Cubana de Aviación was operating within the restrictions and difficulties that Cuba was experiencing in the context of the so-called Special Period that the island was going through after the fall of the Soviet Union. This period of generalized socioeconomic crisis that followed the end of the Cold War and the termination of Soviet support to the Fidel Castro regime also affected the aeronautical industry and Cubana especially.

In this line, being one the only remaining operators of Soviet passenger planes in the Western hemisphere at the time, Cubana was known to be having difficulties keeping these aircraft airworthy. Spare parts had to be paid for with US dollars, which were hard and scarce to obtain during the 1990s crisis. This latter task was especially difficult given a long-standing US commercial embargo and other economic sanctions put in place against the island's Communist regime since the 1960s. Consequently, due to all these reasons, Cubana resorted to carrying its own Soviet-trained technicians and mechanics aboard flights and cannibalizing airframes of other Soviet-built aircraft in its fleet to keep its other aircraft of the same origin in the air during the 1990s.[4]

Eventually, the head of Ecuador's General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC), Ecuadorian Air Force general Oswaldo Domínguez announced that Cuban records showed that "the plane was totally in compliance. There are records of all the inspections and obligatory maintenance procedures." He further ruled out the possibility of a bomb or a terrorist attack but reported "signs that the motors were put in reverse."[4]

The post-crash fire was more determinant in the tragedy than the actual runway overrun and crash. Several testimonies recalled how passengers initially survived the crash but later struggled to evacuate the plane on fire, with several dying as a consequence.[4] Surviving passengers' testimonies, for instance, reported that two stewardesses survived the crash and helped some passengers to evacuate but were later killed by the fire.[15] Another local resident testified that passengers' cries for help continued after the crash until "the final explosion came and [then] everything was quiet." The intense heat of the fire, with flames reaching up to 150 feet into the air, also hampered initial rescue efforts by the locals. The whole ordeal led a local resident to claim that "people didn't die from injuries. They died from the explosion and fire.[4]

In the meantime, and as a safeguard against another tragedy, the DGAC commenced a series of works in 1999 to build a runway safety area (a.k.a "safety zone" or a "safety and stop zone") in the immediate and adjacent areas to the start of runway 17, from where Flight 389 had strayed off after its ill-fated, aborted take-off. The project, which involved private and public property expropriation,[16][17] erected a horizontal berm-like platform of 280 meters long and 92 meters wide[16] that increased the runway excursion space for planes to stop in case of a rejected takeoff or a botched landing.[18]

The safety zone covered (and thus shielded) all or part of the places through which the Cubana Tu-154 had wreaked havoc in its way before stopping. This was mainly the case of the Tufiño avenue, which circles the runway 17 start and, due to the safety zone being erected over it, had a two-way tunnel built to allow vehicular traffic under the new structure.[19] Nearby streets and other surrounding residential areas and businesses were also protected from potential tragedies by the new construction. The safety zone was finished and inaugurated in mid-July 2000.[19]

In the end, despite the construction of the safety zone being carried out during his time in office, President Mahuad's earlier promise to build a new airport did not come to fruition during his tenure, which coincided with the start of a severe socioeconomic and political crisis that eventually led to Mahuad being ousted in a coup in 2000. The new airport only began construction in 2006 and was finally opened in February 2013, nearly 15 years after the CU389 tragedy, located about 18 kilometres (11 mi; 9.7 nmi) east of Quito, way outside its urban area.