The flight was piloted by captain Hance Rahmowiyogo, 42 years old, a pilot who had been with the airline for 20 years and has more than 12,000 flying hours. All 234 passangers and crews aboard were killed in the disaster. The crash site was in a ravine near the village of Buah Nabar in the Sibolangit district south of Medan. Garuda Indonesia Flight 152 remains the deadliest single plane crash in Indonesia and anywhere in Sumatra, the deadliest plane accident in 1997, and fourth-highest of any aviation involving an Airbus A300 series, after China Airlines 140, American Airlines 587, and Iran Air 655. The pilot could not see the hills, due to the 1997 SouthEast Asian Haze. The pilot screamed "Allahu Akbar which means: God is Great, as the mountains came into view. Before the accident, there was also an airline, Merpati Nusantara Airlines which has the same flight number with Garuda Indonesia. The Air Traffic controllers then became confused of which plane they were talking to, as Merpati Nusantara Airlines was also in the area at the time. This confusion led to the controllers' failure to notice that Garuda Indonesia was flying dangerously low in a hilly area. In conclusion, the accident was caused by a mis-communication between the Air Traffic controllers and the pilot and the confusion of the Air Traffic controllers.
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Written by: Kevin E. Gunawan
