Garuda Indonesia Colombo, Bombay, and Prague. Rome and Paris became the airline's third and fourth European destinations, with flights stopping in Bombay and Cairo to refuel. Flights to the People's Republic of China began that same year, with service to Canton via Phnom Penh, the first Indonesian airline to do so. During the early 1970s, Garuda Indonesia took delivery of both the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 and Fokker F28 Fellowship for its short and medium-haul operations. The airline went on to take delivery of 62 F28s, holding the title for the largest operator of the F28 in the world. In 1976, the airline
Garuda Indonesia Flight 865 involved was the fifth of the six, PK-GIE. The aircraft involved was a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30, registration PK-GIE. One of six (PK-GIA to PK-GIF) in the Garuda fleet at the time of the accident, it had its first flight on 24 April 1979 and was delivered to Garuda Indonesia on 27 July 1979. Eighteen years and eleven months old at the time of the accident, it was the 284th DC-10 built; its MSN number was 46685. The aircraft had three General Electric CF6-50C2 turbofan engines for propulsion. The cause of the engine failure leading to the crash was that the