Garuda Indonesia East. In 2009, Garuda Indonesia expressed an interest in joining the SkyTeam airline alliance, which would make it the second airline in Southeast Asia to join after Vietnam Airlines. Membership would open SkyTeam's network to Indonesian, Australian, and New Zealand markets, which it lacked connectivity to. In December 2009, three SkyTeam members – Korean Air, KLM, and Delta Air Lines (China Airlines joined as fourth member to support Garuda after its 2011 SkyTeam inclusion) – committed to supporting Garuda Indonesia to join SkyTeam. This made Garuda Indonesia eligible to apply for membership in the alliance. On 23 November 2010, Garuda
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