Flight to the edge...

November 9 (Friday), just after lunch, an Iberia Airbus 340-600 flew into Quito. It was raining at the time and the pilot was unfamiliar with the airport. According to reports, the plane touched down about half-way down the runway. This didn't leave a whole lot of stopping room.

As you can see in the photos, the plane did stop, but not before it had run out of runway and taken out the Instrument Landing System. Fortunately, it did stop before it left airport property. The next stop was a building supply store and then a neighbourhood soccer field.

ILS flights into Quito were stopped until Sunday afternoon (Nov 11).

The Ecuadorian Civil Aviation department is still investigating the incident, but they have already banned this airplane from reentering Ecuadorian airspace if it is refurbished to fly again.

A new landing gear assembly will be mounted so that they can move the airplane from where it is right now. They hope to have that done this week.

A cartoon in one of the papers had a bunch of Iberia passengers waiting for their flight and over the PA system an announcer says that the Iberia flight is now ready for boarding but by way of Maestro Street (the street where I took the first photo).