Eighty people are killed when Cubana de Aviación Flight 389 crashes during a rejected takeoff from the Old Mariscal Sucre International Airport in Quito, Ecuador.

Cubana de Aviación Flight 389 (CU389/CUB389) was a scheduled international passenger flight, flying from the former Mariscal Sucre International Airport in Quito to Havana's José Martí International Airport, with a stopover at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Guayaquil, operated by Cuban flag carrier Cubana de Aviación.

In aviation, a rejected takeoff (RTO) or aborted takeoff is the situation in which the pilot decides to abort the takeoff of an airplane after initiating the takeoff roll but before the airplane leaves the ground.

Mariscal Sucre International Airport (IATA: UIO, ICAO: SEQU) was the main international airport that served Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador. It was the busiest airport in Ecuador by passenger traffic, by aircraft movement and by cargo movement, and one of the busiest airports in South America. It was named after Venezuelan-born Antonio José de Sucre, a hero of Ecuadorian and Latin American independence. It began operations on August 5, 1960, and during its last years of operation, handled about 6.2 million passengers and 164,000 metric tons of freight per year. The airport, one of the highest in the world was located in the northern part of the city, in the Chaupicruz parish, within five minutes of Quito's financial center; the terminals were located at the intersection of Amazonas and La Prensa avenues. Mariscal Sucre International was the largest hub for TAME with an average of 50 daily departures.

Quito, officially San Francisco de Quito, is the capital and second-largest city of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its metropolitan area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha. Quito is in a valley on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes.