@ Albatros: thank you for the picture. Not quite clear what´s smoke and what´s another cloud, but yes, if you know where to look, you can see a bit.
@Longtimer : thank you for the NY times article. That made me look for the accident report.
Found it herre:
http://knkt.dephub.go.id/knkt/ntsc_a...l%20Report.pdf
Visibility 300 - 400 m due to SMOKE !!
Of course, the ´´cause´´ identified was not ´´smoke´´, but something else. Quote is below.
Thanks for the hint !
Klauss
Quiote from the accident report
Synopsis On 26 September 1997, the Garuda Flight GA 152 departed from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Jakarta at 04:41 UTC with an estimated time of arrival at 06:41 UTC. The weather en-route was reported clear with scattered clouds. The visibility at Medan Polonia International Airport was less than 500 meters due to the smoke of forest fires in Riau, South Sumatera and Kalimantan. Approaching Polonia International Airport, Medan, the aircraft followed the instructions of Medan Approach, based on local radar vectoring guidance. Just seconds before impact the flight crew became aware that they were below the assigned altitude of 2000 ft. In spite of the immediate corrective action taken by the crew, the aircraft struck a treetop on a ridge at about 1550 ft above sea level, separating about nine feet of the right-hand wing tip. It rendered the aircraft uncontrollable, spilling fuel along its final track until it hit the ground in an abandoned rice field at the bottom of a ravine approximately 600 meters from the first tree impact. The crash location was at Latitude N 03°20’28.2”, Longitude E 98°34’26.6”, approximately 14.6 NM south west (205 degrees magnetic) of Polonia Airport. The aircraft was totally destroyed and the accident was non-survivable and all persons on board perished, including 222 passengers and 12 crewmembers. The flight data and cockpit voice recorders indicated that the aircraft was in controlled flight until it struck trees at the top of a ridge. Consequently, this accident may be categorized as a Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT). CFIT accident is characterized by a loss of three-dimensional spatial awareness. It was found that a number of factors contributed to the flight crew’s loss of spatial awareness, vertical as well as horizontal.
Unqoute