The aircraft involved in the incident was a DC-8 chartered from the Icelandic airline Loftleiðir for Hajj operations; the aircraft's registration number was TF-FLA, and its name was "Leifur Eiríksson".
Accident
The aircraft was chartered by Garuda Indonesia. On November 15 it operated as flight LL001 from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to Surabaya, Indonesia. All 13 crew members were Icelandic. There were 249 passengers, the majority being residents of Indonesia who had made the hajj to Mecca and were returning home. The flight departed Jeddah for Surabaya with a planned stop at Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo, Sri Lanka, for refueling and crew rotation. Thunderstorms were in the area, and windshear was an issue. At 22:53:24 local time, the control center informed the aircraft's crew that they would be landing on runway 04. In response, the crew requested a landing on runway 22. The controller approved the request and gave instructions for an ILS landing on runway 22. The aircraft then descended to flight level 220, reaching that height around from the airport. At 23:06:32 local time, the crew contacted the airport’s radar control center, which cleared the flight to descend to an altitude of 2,000 feet and then follow control's instructions to perform an approach to landing on runway 22. The dispatcher also gave the crew instructions to report when they had reached the radio beacon, which the crew acknowledged receiving but did not confirm. The radar controller periodically transmitted distance and altitude data to the aircraft. The last radio message from the controller was given at 23:27:26: "Lima, Lima 001, slightly to the left of centre line, very slightly to the left of centre line, two miles from touch-down, height 650 feet, cleared to land off this approach." At 23:27:37, the crew replied, "Roger." When the approach controller subsequently acquired a visual on Flight 001, the aircraft was descending dangerously towards the ground. The controller warned the flight: "Lima, Lima 001, you are undershooting." However, the crew was then speaking with the radar controller on another frequency, and so did not receive the advisory. The approach controller then lost sight of the DC-8, after which he saw an explosion. At 23:28:03, the DC-8 crashed into a rubber and coconut plantation and exploded. The crash site was located from runway 22 and off the right side of the runway's extended center line. As the first witness to the crash, the approach controller immediately informed his colleagues of the incident. Within half an hour, 5 fire trucks arrived at the crash site. The rescue operation was hampered by the presence of many coconut palm trees, which prevented access to many large pieces of equipment. One of the rescue team members was the acting head of Sri Lanka's civil aviation authority. While assisting in the rescue, he managed to document the instrument readings and took photographs necessary for the investigation. A total of 183 people were killed in the crash: 8 crew members and 175 passengers. Survivors totaled 79: 32 people received non-fatal injuries, while 47 people were uninjured.
