Garuda Indonesia Flight 152 (Merpati Nusantara Airlines Flight 152) was also in the area at the time. Earlier in the day, another Flight 152, Merpati Nusantara Airlines Flight 152, was handled by the same air traffic controller. This led to the controller mistakenly saying "Merpati one five two turn left heading 240 to intercept runway zero five from the right side"; as the wrong call sign was used, the Garuda pilots disregarded these instructions. The controller, on not receiving a response, queried the pilots on if they heard the instructions; this time the correct call sign "Indonesia 152" was used. The controller then repeated
Garuda Indonesia Vishnoe's vogel, die zijn vleugels uitslaat hoog boven uw eilanden"", which means "I'm Garuda, Vishnu's Bird, that spreads its wings high above the Islands". In Hindu tradition, Garuda is the name of Lord Vishnu's mount ("vahana"). The line was mentioned by Sukarno during the Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference at The Hague, from 23 August to 2 November 1949. In its current institutional form, Garuda Indonesia had its beginnings in the Indonesian war of independence against the Dutch in the late 1940s, when Garuda flew special transports with a Douglas DC-3. The first aircraft was a DC-3 known as "Seulawah" (Acehnese: