Iberia Flight 6463

Iberia Flight 6463 of 9 November 2007 between Madrid-Barajas Airport, Madrid (Spain) and Mariscal Sucre International Airport in Quito (Ecuador), an Airbus 340-600 with registration EC- JOH and named Miguel de Unamuno, suffered an accident on landing at the destination airport. It had 359 people on board, including passengers and crew.

The flight

On 9 November 2007, the Airbus 340-600 aircraft was operating a flight on the Madrid-Quito-Guayaquil route, carrying 345 passengers and 14 crew members.

The accident

The weather conditions at Mariscal Sucre Airport in Quito required the application of instrument flight rules, which is why the aircraft's crew, cleared by the Approach Control of

Quito airport, carried out instrument approach procedure number 4 (VOR QIT DME/ILS) for runway 35.

It was determined that the accident was due to the fact that, at the moment of landing, in wet runway conditions and with fog, the aircraft touched down very far along the landing runway, and not within its first third. In addition, the aircraft made a final approach at a vertical speed of 19 feet per second and with a vertical acceleration of 3.1 g, an extremely hard landing for an aircraft of that size.

The effect was the breakage of the linkage of the main landing gear (left and right), which caused the wheels of the front axles to strike the ground with enough force to burst the two front tyres; the touchdown was followed by the aircraft skidding to 232 m beyond the end of the runway (3150m long) into the safety area. Five people were hospitalised with minor injuries, and the aircraft was declared a "total loss" as the cost of repair exceeded 75% of its value.

More detailed information about the accident can be found in the report produced by the DGAC of Ecuador here: