Late on the afternoon of Friday, November 9, 2007 an Iberia Airlines A340-600 ran off the end of a runway at Mariscal Sucre airport in Quito, Ecuador. Flight IB6463, operated by Spain's national carrier, had just arrived from Madrid, Spain with more than 330 passengers and crew on board. No one was seriously injured. The aircraft was badly damaged.Airport officials in Quito said that one or more of the tires on the aircraft's main landing gear had burst when it touched down. As the aircraft slid down the runway, the landing gear partially collapsed. The huge aircraft came to rest in an area of grass and sand of the end of the runway on which it had landed. Photos of the aircraft show it leaning to port, resting on the nacelles of the number one and number two engines, which were badly damaged.
Passengers and crew evacuated the aircraft using inflatable slides on the starboard side of the aircraft. An article in the Spanish language publication El País includes a video clip of passengers using the slides to evacuate. Spanish news website El Periódico de Catalunya has published a photo gallery of the A340 accident at Quito.
The accident caused the airport to be closed for some time, during which inbound international flights were reported to have been rerouted to Guayaquil. The A340 is the largest aircraft type authorized to land at Quito.
[Photo Source]
