Chachoan Airport

Chachoan Airport is a high elevation airport serving Ambato, capital of the Tungurahua Province in Ecuador. The airport is northeast of Ambato, in a broad basin of the central Andes mountains cut through by the Ambato River.
The Ambato VOR-DME is located on a ridge south-southeast of the airport. The Ambato non-directional beacon is located on the field. There is rising and mountainous terrain in all quadrants.

Accident

On October 28, 1997, An Aerogal Fairchild FH-227D, with registration HC-BUF, was operating a repositioning ferry flight with staff and equipment from Quito's Mariscal Sucre International Airport to Chachoan. Due to the pilots' and the airline's poor-to-none flight preparation to fly into this high-elevation airfield, the plane touched down halfway down the runway at high speed. It overran the runway by 170 meters and fell into a 90-meter-deep ravine. There were no casualties among the seven occupants but the plane was written off.
This particular airframe had been briefly used in 1992 for photoshoot purposes for the 1993 movie Alive, painted in the livery of the ill-fated Uruguayan Air Force 571. The photoshoot took place in Boeing Field, Seattle.