[1] Having originated from Jakarta at 06:00 p.m. local time (11:00 a.m. UTC) the previous evening with preceding stopovers in Singapore and Bangkok, the flight was part of the airline's Jakarta to Amsterdam milk run service with stopovers in Singapore, Bangkok, Bombay, Karachi, Cairo, and Rome.

[2] The stopover in Bombay was to offload and pick up passengers, change the operating crew, and refuel the aircraft before proceeding with the flight's next segment to Karachi and onwards until Amsterdam.

Weather conditions were normal at Santacruz Airport at the time of the flight's departure from Bombay, with 15 passengers and 14 crew on board.

[1] All 29 people on board the aircraft died in the crash that marked the first fatal accident involving a Convair 990, as well as the type's second hull loss.

[1] The aircraft involved in the accident was a Convair 990A jet airliner powered by four General Electric CJ805-23B turbofan engines with registration PK-GJA.

[8][9] On 17 September 1966, the aircraft was involved in a ground incident at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, which resulted in a broken nose cone.

[13] Of the cabin crew members, the chief purser was the youngest sibling of A. Y. Mokoginta, the then-Indonesian Ambassador to the United Arab Republic (now Egypt).

[17] An Indonesian Navy officer who also served as an adjutant for R. Soebijakto, the then-First Deputy of Indonesia's Department of Defense and Security, was also on board.

[1] The day following the accident, Garuda Indonesian Airways grounded the remaining two Convair 990A aircraft in its fleet and suspended the Jakarta to Amsterdam and vice versa milk run service.

The two Convair 990A aircraft were relegated to flying on Indonesian domestic and Asian international routes until the airline phased out the type in 1973.

[21] A year later, an Indonesian orchid breeder registered a new Dendrobium hybridisation named after the late wife of the health minister.

[17] In the hours after the accident, representatives from the Indian Directorate General of Civil Aviation visited the crash site and conducted a preliminary investigation.

[23][24] However, a source citing the investigation noted that the jet airliner was presumed to have been refuelled with avgas instead of kerosene-based avtur during the stopover in Bombay.