Garuda Indonesia Flight 892

The aircraft involved in the accident was a Convair CV-990-30A-5 Coronado with registration PK-GJA. This particular type of aircraft was the first jet airliner operated by Garuda Indonesia, which also marks the airline's entry into the jet age. The aircraft was configured to carry up to 131 passengers and was given the name Pajajaran after the old capital city of the Sunda Kingdom in Indonesia. Powered by four General Electric CJ805-23B turbofan engines, the aircraft had manufacturer serial number 30-10-3 and was delivered to the airline on January 24, 1964.[5]

Garuda Indonesia Airways Flight 892 landed at Bombay–Santa Cruz Airport from Bangkok at 01:45 a.m. IST (08:15 p.m. UTC, May 27). The flight made its third scheduled stop in Bombay to pick up more passengers, change on-duty crew members, and refuel the aircraft before continuing to Karachi. The flight was part of the airline's Jakarta–Singapore–Bangkok–Bombay–Karachi–Cairo–Rome–Amsterdam milk run. Eleven additional passengers were supposed to board the flight in Bombay, but five passengers canceled their tickets at the last minute, leaving the remaining six to get on board, and the flight was finally set to carry 15 passengers. The weather at Bombay–Santa Cruz Airport was reportedly clear at the time the flight departed from Bombay.[2]

The Bombay–Santa Cruz Airport's ground crew members serviced the aircraft during its stop in Bombay, including refueling. The aircraft took off from Bombay at 02:32 a.m. (09:02 p.m. UTC, May 27). About seven minutes later, all communications between Bombay Airport's air traffic controller and the aircraft were lost, and the aircraft was reported to have crashed at 02:44 a.m. (09:14 p.m. UTC, May 27).[2] The aircraft experienced engine failure and went sharply upward to the point the aircraft was unrecoverable, causing the aircraft to begin losing its altitude until it eventually crashed in an almost vertical attitude. The aircraft crashed near the village of Bilalpada, which is located at 32 mi (51 km) north of Bombay–Santa Cruz Airport. The crash killed all 29 passengers and crew on board. Debris from the aircraft fell around the area in the village, injuring several people and also killing one person on the ground.[3][4]

In the Bombay–Karachi flight route segment, Garuda Indonesia Flight 892 carried 15 passengers. In terms of passenger departure cities, six passengers boarded the flight in Jakarta, three in Bangkok,[6] and six in Bombay.[2] One of the Indonesian passengers was the wife of the then-Indonesian Minister of Health, G. A. Siwabessy. She was on her way to Vienna to attend a nuclear conference organized by the United Nations under its International Atomic Energy Agency, but her husband, who was on an official visit in Amsterdam, requested that she pay a visit to the Netherlands first.[7][8] Another notable passenger was the sole Indian national, who was the president of the Institution of Engineers (India) at the time. He boarded the flight in Bombay and was on a trip to London. Officials from the institution said that the president was supposed to take an Air India flight, but he later switched to the Garuda flight to be able to visit Cairo along his trip.[2]

A total of 14 crew members were onboard the flight. The cockpit crew members consisted of Captain Rochim, Captain Sudharmono, Flight navigator Asmoro, and Flight engineer Djumadi. Six cabin crew and four off-duty extra crew members were also on board. One of the pursers of the flight was the younger brother of Ahmad Yunus Mokoginta, who served as the Indonesian Ambassador to Egypt at the time. All on-duty crew members on board the flight boarded the aircraft in Bombay to replace the previous set of crew members, who had been working since the flight originated in Jakarta. The newly-boarded on-duty crew members were to be replaced by another set of crew members in Cairo. Meanwhile, the four off-duty extra crew members, all originating from Jakarta together with the original on-duty crew members, remained on board the flight.[6]

The cause of the accident has yet to be officially disclosed, despite a post-crash investigation in Bombay conducted by a joint team from the Indonesian Directorate of Civil Aviation and Garuda Indonesia, with assistance from Lufthansa.[6] However, it is presumed that the error of the Bombay–Santa Cruz Airport's ground refueler crew, who mistakenly refueled the aircraft with benzine instead of kerosene, was the possible cause of the accident. Benzine is most commonly used to fuel turboprop-engined aircraft.[4]

Seventeen people in Bilalpada village were reportedly injured as the result of the crash, in which two of them were critical. The crash also destroyed four huts and a school-owned shed. Nineteen buffaloes were also killed after some of the aircraft debris hit and set ablaze their stable.[2] One person on the ground died because of the accident.

President Suharto of Indonesia ordered to bring all of the deceased Indonesians in the accident back to the country. Several stones that had been collected from the crash site were put inside each coffin of the Indonesian victims. Some of the deceased Indonesian passengers were buried in public cemeteries, while notable passengers and all of the crew members were buried in a heroes cemetery.[8]

Garuda Indonesia re-used the flight number GA892 on its Denpasar–Beijing route from 2015 until its suspension in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.[9][10] The aircraft registration PK-GJA was re-applied to an ATR 72-600 operated by the airline's low-cost subsidiary Citilink since 2019.[5][11]

• List of Garuda Indonesia incidents and accidents