Garuda Indonesia Flight 200 37,300 cycles since its first flight in 1992. The captain was 44-year-old Muhammad Marwoto Komar, who had been working with Garuda Indonesia for more than 21 years. He had 13,421 flying hours, including 3,703 hours on the Boeing 737. The first officer was 30-year-old Gagam Saman Rohmana, who had been with the airline for three years and had 1,528 flying hours, including 1,353 hours on the Boeing 737. The oldest airline in Indonesia (founded in 1949), Garuda Indonesia had received a number of criticisms in the months surrounding the crash. According to Australian aviation experts, Garuda Indonesia had one of
Garuda Indonesia Flight 200 the worst safety records among the world's national carriers. Since 1950, Garuda Indonesia has had 13 major accidents. The most recent was in 2002, when Garuda Indonesia Flight 421 ditched in the Bengawan Solo River due to engine flameout caused by excessive hail ingestion, killing a flight attendant. The deadliest accident was in 1997, when Garuda Indonesia Flight 152 flew into a wooded mountain on approach to Medan, killing 234 people. The managing director of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, Peter Harbison, stated that the major accidents in Indonesian aviation history were all caused by the combinations of airports'