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On 29 August 1998, the aircraft operating the domestic Quito-Guayaquil leg of the flight, a Russian-made Tupolev Tu-154M overran the runway, smashing buildings and crashed into a soccer field in Quito while taking off from the airport. The aircraft burst into flames and 70 people on board were killed. A total of 10 people on the ground, including children, were killed.[1]
Aircraft
The aircraft was a Tupolev Tu-154M, serial number 85A720 and registered in Cuba as CU-T1264. It was manufactured by the Kuybyshev Aviation Plant in Kuybyshev, Soviet Russia, today the Aviakor plant in Samara, Russia. The aircraft had first flown in December 1985 and was powered by three Soloviev D-30KU-154turbofan engines. It was delivered to Cubana de Aviación in February 1986 and by the time of the crash, the airframe had reportedly accumulated 9,256 flight hours.[2][3][4]
Passengers and crew
The aircraft was carrying 91 people, consisting of 14 crew and 77 passengers. It was piloted by Mario Ramos (commander), Leonardo Díaz (co-pilot) and Carlos González (flight engineer).[5] Most of the occupants were Ecuadorians, with some Argentinians, Italians, Jamaicans, Chileans and Cubans.[6][7]
Among the passengers killed in the accident was 27-year-old Maita Madriñan Guayasamín,[8] grand-daughter of renowned Ecuadorian painter Oswaldo Guayasamín. Madriñan, married to Chilean citizen Alejandro Sule (also spelled "Zule"),[8] was traveling with her 4-year-old daughter Alejandra and her 4-month-old son Martín, both of whom were Guayasamín's great-grandchildren. Both Sule-Madriñan children were also the grandchildren of Anselmo Sule, a leader of Radical Party of Chile and a former legislator.[4] Moreover, Madriñan was also the granddaughter of Ecuadorian politician and former government minister Alfredo Vera, who also lost his grand nephew Emilio in the crash.[9]
Accident
Events
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 VR 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]
Rescue efforts
Rescuers reached the crash site and started to evacuate survivors. Explosions could be heard repeatedly after the crash. Firefighters directed 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 taken 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 had been recovered from the crash site. Five children playing on the field were killed as the plane plowed into them.[1]
Aftermath
Shortly after the crash, Mariscal Sucre International Airport was closed and flight operations were canceled in response to the crash. Newly-inaugurated Ecuadorian PresidentJamil Mahuad, who had just taken office 19 days before, visited the crash site and expressed his solidarity to the next of kin and relatives of the victims of the crash. Mahuad ordered a full report into the cause of the crash and stated that he would build a new airport away from the city, as the airport had been criticized for being too close to a densely populated area.[11]
Previous tragedies and close calls
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 AéreasBoeing 727, which carried the Brazilian Corinthiansfootball 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 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]
Investigation
Initial speculation
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 of 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]
Post-crash fire
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]
Safety zone
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 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]
New airport
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.
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