Garuda Indonesian Airways Flight 892

Garuda Indonesian Airways Flight 892 was a scheduled international passenger flight of Garuda Indonesian Airways (now Garuda Indonesia) from Jakarta to Amsterdam with stopovers in Singapore, Bangkok, Bombay (now Mumbai), Karachi, Cairo, and Rome. On 28 May 1968, a Convair 990A jet airliner was operating the flight's Bombay to Karachi segment when it crashed while climbing out after take-off from Santacruz Airport (now Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport). The aircraft crashed in Bilalpada village near Nala Sopara, killing all 29 passengers and crew on board and one person on the ground. The cause of the accident is unknown, but it is presumed to originate from misfuelling during the stopover in Bombay. It was the first fatal accident and the second hull loss of the Convair 990 aircraft.[1]

Garuda Indonesian Airways Flight 892
Pajajaran, the aircraft involved in the accident.
Accident
Date28 May 1968 (1968-05-28)
SummaryCrashed on climb-out; cause unknown, presumably misfuelling
SiteBilalpada village near Nala Sopara, India
Total fatalities30
Aircraft
Aircraft typeConvair CV-990-30A-5
Aircraft namePajajaran
OperatorGaruda Indonesian Airways
RegistrationPK-GJA
Flight originKemayoran International Airport, Jakarta, Indonesia
1st stopoverSingapore International Airport, Singapore
2nd stopoverBangkok International Airport, Bangkok, Thailand
3rd stopoverSantacruz Airport, Bombay, India
4th stopoverKarachi International Airport, Karachi, Pakistan
5th stopoverCairo International Airport, Cairo, United Arab Republic
Last stopoverLeonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport, Rome, Italy
DestinationAmsterdam Airport Schiphol, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Occupants29
Passengers15
Crew14 (including four deadheading)
Fatalities29
Survivors0
Ground casualties
Ground fatalities1

Aircraft
The same aircraft was seen during a proof load test in 1961.

The aircraft involved in the accident was a Convair CV-990-30A-5 jet airliner powered by four General Electric CJ805-23B turbofan engines with registration PK-GJA. The 1960-built aircraft had serial number 30-10-3 and was the third production of the Convair 990, initially destined for American Airlines. Formerly used as one of the experimental aircraft for Convair 990 type certification,[2] the aircraft was later converted to the Convair 990A variant afterward. With a configuration to carry up to 99 passengers and named Pajajaran after the capital city of the Sunda Kingdom,[3][4] Garuda Indonesian Airways took delivery of the aircraft on 24 January 1964 as the last of three on order.[5]

On 17 September 1966, the aircraft was involved in a ground incident at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol; the aircraft overshot the apron and struck a stationary forklift, resulting in minor damage to the nose cone.[6]

Flight history

Garuda Indonesian Airways Flight 892 arrived at Santacruz Airport in Bombay at 01:45 a.m. local time. Having originated from Jakarta with preceding stopovers in Singapore and Bangkok, the flight was part of the airline's Jakarta–Singapore–Bangkok–Bombay–Karachi–Cairo–Rome–Amsterdam milk run service.[7] The flight made the stopover in Bombay to pick up passengers, change operating crew members, and refuel the aircraft before continuing with the flight's next segment to Karachi. Eleven passengers were supposed to board the flight in Bombay, but due to last-minute cancellation by five passengers, only six ended up boarding the flight. Weather conditions at Santacruz Airport reportedly were normal and without strong winds at the time of the flight's departure from Bombay for Karachi with 15 passengers and 14 crew on board.[8]

Accident

The aircraft took off from Santacruz Airport at 02:32 a.m. local time. Seven minutes later, the air traffic control at Santacruz Airport lost contact with the aircraft; no distress calls were received from the aircraft before the contact went lost.[9] The aircraft was then reported to have crashed about five minutes after the contact loss, with the crash site located approximately 1.5 miles (1.3 nmi; 2.4 km) east of Nalla Sopara railway station near the village of Bilalpada. The resultant explosion as the aircraft crashed into the ground caused at least one large piece of the aircraft's debris to carve a crater of 20 feet (6.1 m) deep at the crash site, while most of the aircraft's debris fell strewn over an area of three square miles (7.8 km2) wide.[8]

All 29 passengers and crew on board the aircraft died in the accident. Seventeen people in Bilalpada village reportedly were injured, two of which were severe. Three villagers had to get hospitalised; one was later pronounced dead.[10] Besides human casualties, the crash destroyed several villagers' huts and a school-owned shed. Moreover, some of the burning debris from the aircraft hit and set a stable ablaze, killing 19 buffaloes.[8]

Passengers and crew

Passengers

Garuda Indonesian Airways Flight 892 carried 15 passengers on the flight's Bombay to Karachi segment. Of the departure cities, six passengers boarded the flight in Jakarta, three in Bangkok, and six in Bombay. Of the destination cities, six passengers would disembark the flight in Karachi, two in Cairo, two in Rome, and five in Amsterdam. Six passengers were from Indonesia, four were from Pakistan, two were from Greece, one was from India, one was from Japan, and one was from the Netherlands.[8][11]

Among the six passengers from Indonesia was an official of the country's National Atomic Energy Agency, whose husband was G. A. Siwabessy, the head of the same agency and Indonesian Minister of Health at the time.[12] The sole passenger from India was the president of the Institution of Engineers (India) and vice-president of the International Federation for Pre-stressed Concrete.[13] The sole passenger from Japan reportedly was a section chief at Dai-ichi Life.[14] Additionally, the sole passenger from the Netherlands was a Dutch leader of the Moral Re-Armament.[8]

Crew

The flight had 14 crew members on board; all were from Indonesia. Ten were the operating crew on the flight, consisting of four cockpit crew and six cabin crew, while the remaining four were deadheading crew. The cockpit crew members were Captain Abdul Rochim,[4] Captain Soedharmono, Flight Navigator Asmoro, and Flight Engineer Djumadi. Of the cabin crew members, the chief purser was the youngest sibling of A. Y. Mokoginta, the Indonesian Ambassador to the United Arab Republic (now Egypt) at the time.[11][15]

All the operating crew members boarded the flight in Bombay to replace the original crew members set, which had worked since the flight originated in Jakarta. These newly-boarded crew members were to be replaced by another set of crew members in Cairo. Meanwhile, the four deadheading crew members, all originating from Jakarta with the original operating crew members, remained on board the flight.[11]

Investigation

In the hours after the accident, several representatives from the Indian Directorate General of Civil Aviation visited the crash site and conducted a preliminary investigation.[8] A joint team from Indonesia, which included representatives from the Indonesian Directorate of Civil Aviation, Garuda Indonesian Airways, and Lufthansa, was dispatched to Bombay to join the investigation.[11] Led by Karno Barkah of the Indonesian Directorate of Civil Aviation, the team arrived in Bombay the following morning. The search for the aircraft's flight recorder began the day after the arrival of the Indonesian team at the crash site.[9]

The cause of the accident remains unknown to date, although there was a court of inquiry to determine it. The court of inquiry was chaired by Y. S. Tambe, a retired Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, and the accident report reportedly would be completed by January 1970.[16] However, a source citing the investigation stated that the jet airliner presumably had been misfuelled with avgas instead of kerosene-based avtur during the stopover in Bombay. The alleged consequence is that all of the aircraft's four engines experienced a partial or total failure during the climb-out, causing the pilots to lose control of the aircraft. The aircraft then entered a nosedive until it finally crashed in an almost vertical attitude.[1][17]

Aftermath

The day following the accident, Garuda Indonesian Airways grounded the remaining two Convair 990A aircraft in its fleet and suspended the Jakarta to Amsterdam and vice versa milk run service.[9][18] The latter would later get reinstated, but the operating aircraft for the flight got replaced by the Douglas DC-8 on lease from KLM. The two Convair 990A aircraft were, in turn, relegated to fly on Indonesian domestic and Asian international routes until the airline eventually phased out the type in 1973.[4]

President Suharto of Indonesia sent an aircraft from Garuda Indonesian Airways to repatriate all deceased Indonesians in the accident. Inside each coffin of the Indonesian victims, stones collected from the crash site were also placed. Most of the deceased Indonesian passengers were buried in public cemeteries, while the wife of the health minister and the entire crew members were buried in a heroes' cemetery.[12]

In 1969, the Institution of Engineers (India) established an engineering paper memorial prize with the name taken from the late president.[19] A year later, an Indonesian botanist registered a new Dendrobium hybridisation named after the late wife of the health minister to the Royal Horticultural Society.[12]

See also

References
  1. Ranter, Harro. "ASN Aircraft accident Convair CV-990-30A-5 Coronado PK-GJA Mumbai Airport (BOM)". Aviation Safety Network. Archived from the original on 31 July 2021. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  2. "990 Withstands Stress Of Lengthy Load Test". Convairiety (Fort Worth Edition). Vol. 14, no. 16. 2 August 1961. p. 3.
  3. Almanak Sumatera (in Indonesian). Komando Antar Daerah Sumatera. 1969. p. 517. Archived from the original on 29 July 2023. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
  4. Sumbodo, Sudiro (15 April 2018). Stroud, Nick (ed.). "The Convair 990 and Garuda Indonesian Airways". The Aviation Historian (23): 69, 74. ISSN 2051-1930. OCLC 1035942238.
  5. Proctor, Jon (1996). Convair 880 & 990. Great Airliners Series (1st ed.). World Transport Press. pp. 64, 87, 112. ISBN 0-9626730-4-8.
  6. Pijper, Jans (17 September 1966). "Politierapport nr. 964: Rapport Verkeersongeval PK-GJA en KLM-34" (in Dutch). N.V. Luchthaven Schiphol, Korps Orde en Veiligheid – via Herman Dekker.
  7. Larsson, Björn (1 April 1968). "Garuda Indonesian Airways International Timetable". Airline Timetable Images. p. 3. Archived from the original on 30 October 2021. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
  8. "29 killed in plane crash near Bombay". The Indian Express. Vol. 36, no. 168. 29 May 1968. pp. 1, 5. Archived from the original on 28 May 2023. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
  9. "Garuda aircraft grounded". The Indian Express. Vol. 36, no. 169. 30 May 1968. p. 3. Archived from the original on 6 April 2023. Retrieved 5 March 2022.
  10. "Air Crash of Indonesian Garuda Airlines Jet Plane". Lok Sabha Debates (Fifth Session) (PDF). 4. Vol. 18. Lok Sabha. 26 July 1968. pp. 1808-1809 (73-74). Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 April 2023. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
  11. "Pesawat GIA Convair 990 Djatuh dekat Bombay" [GIA Convair 990 Aircraft Crashes near Bombay]. Bulletin Djembatan Kawanua (in Indonesian). Vol. 50. Kawanua. 1 June 1968. p. 43 (595). Archived from the original on 29 July 2023. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
  12. Isnaeni, Hendri F. (6 April 2019). "Kecelakaan Pesawat Garuda di Mumbai India" [The Crash of Garuda Plane in Mumbai India]. Historia (in Indonesian). Archived from the original on 4 November 2021. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
  13. "Antia - A Question Answered" (PDF). Welsh Highland Heritage (49): 3. September 2010. ISSN 1462-1371. OCLC 49988616. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 December 2022. Retrieved 23 December 2022.
  14. "29 Die in Crash Of Garuda Plane". The Japan Times. Kyodo News. 29 May 1968. p. 4.
  15. Mokodenseho, Sabil (2020). Sisi Lain Gerakan Sarekat Islam di Sulawesi Utara Periode 1920-1950 [The Other Side of the Sarekat Islam Movement in North Sulawesi Period 1920-1950] (in Indonesian). Jakad Media Publishing. p. 141. ISBN 978-623-6551-48-6. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  16. ""Garuda crash report by Jan." The Indian Express. Vol. 38, no. 13. 29 November 1969. p. 13. Archived from the original on 6 April 2023. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
  17. Hubert, Ronan. "Crash of a Convair CV-990-30A-5 near Bombay: 30 killed". Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives. Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  18. "Garuda Service Unaffected: Exec". The Japan Times. 31 May 1968. p. 9.
  19. "IEI Activities: Prizes and Awards - The K F Antia Memorial Prize". Institution of Engineers (India). Archived from the original on 3 June 2023. Retrieved 30 September 2023.

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