| Chachoan Airport | |
| Iata: | ATF |
| Icao: | SEAM |
| Type: | Public / Military |
| City-Served: | Ambato, Ecuador |
| Elevation-F: | 8502 |
| Coordinates: | -1.2125°N -78.5744°W |
| Pushpin Map: | Ecuador |
| Pushpin Label: | ATF |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location of the airport in Ecuador |
| Metric-Rwy: | y |
| R1-Number: | 01/19 |
| R1-Length-M: | 1920 |
| R1-Surface: | Asphalt |
| Footnotes: | Source: WAD GCM Google Maps[1] |
Chachoan Airport (Spanish; Castilian: Aeropuerto Chachoan) is a high elevation airport serving Ambato (also known as San Juan de 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 (Ident: AMV) is located on a ridge 4.7nmi south-southeast of the airport. The Ambato non-directional beacon (Ident: AMB) is located on the field. There is rising and mountainous terrain in all quadrants.[2] [3]
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 (at 100 knots). 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.[4]
This particular airframe (cn.573 formerly N2784R) had been briefly used in 1992 for photoshoot purposes for the 1993 Alive, painted in the livery of the ill-fated Uruguayan Air Force 571.[5] [6]