What was intended to be a celebratory occasion to commemorate a special flight ended up grounding a plane, as a water cannon salute went wrong.
Iberia A350 damaged in Guayaquil during water salute
Thursday, June 4, 2026, was supposed to be a special day for Iberia in Guayaquil, Ecuador (GYE). While Iberia has long served the airport, it upgraded its service from an Airbus A330-200 to an Airbus A350-900, quite a boost in terms of passenger experience and capacity.
The Spanish flag carrier’s flight from Madrid (MAD) operated without a hitch, in a flight time of roughly 10 hours. The return flight to Madrid, with flight number IB132, was supposed to depart at 11:25AM, arriving at 5:30AM the next morning.
The roughly three-year-old plane with the registration code EC-NXD departed its gate roughly on schedule, and taxied out to the runway. The airport had prepared a special water cannon salute for the occasion, which is common for special flights.
So water trucks were positioned on both sides of the aircraft as it taxied out, with lots of plane spotters even there to witness this. Unfortunately they probably witnessed a bit more than they bargained for. As the aircraft moved down the taxiway, the left wingtip made contact with the part of the fire truck that disperses water. This event was captured from just about every angle, so see for yourself below…
As you can see, the wingtip was damaged significantly. The flight ended up being canceled, and the plane is still grounded there, so it’ll be interesting to see how long it takes for the aircraft to go back into service.
Talk about an avoidable mistake… what were they thinking?
Aviation is complicated, and with the number of planes flying, things are bound to go wrong every so often. However, talk about a mistake that was just completely avoidable, and it’s amazing to me that neither party prevented this:
- It’s the responsibility of the pilots to make sure they have sufficient clearance, though admittedly that’s harder to measure when you don’t have numbers that can be measured on a chart, and you don’t have wing walkers
- You’d think the fire truck operators would determine the correct clearance needed for the plane based on the taxiway centerline and wingspan, in deciding where exactly to park during the water cannon salute
This situation seems to come down to a lack of thought. The fire truck by the left wing was parked next to the grass, and it seems like there was some sort of an access road behind it, which the fire truck didn’t want to block. But did they not actually take into account the wingspan of the A350?
I am curious what the discussion on frequency was like during this incident. In any point leading up to this, was concern expressed about the distance, or nothing was said until there was impact?
Bottom line
Guayaquil Airport was excited about Iberia flying an Airbus A350 to the airport, so the airport arranged a water cannon salute for the first flight. Well, it seems those involved failed to do any basic math, as the fire trucks weren’t positioned far enough from the aircraft. So the plane’s wing and the part of the fire truck made contact, damaging the wingtip, and causing the flight to be canceled.
As much as water cannon salutes are an old tradition, it’s amazing how many times things have gone wrong over the years.
What do you make of this Iberia A350 water cannon salute situation?