Merpati Nustantara Airlines Flight 5601 crashes into Mount Papandayan near the town of Garut in West Java, Indonesia, killing 31.

Merpati Nusantara Airlines Flight 5601 (MNA5601/MZ5601) was a domestic scheduled passenger flight, that departed Achmad Yani International Airport, Semarang, Indonesia bound for Husein Sastranegara International Airport, Bandung, Indonesia. On 18 October 1992, the two-year-old CASA/IPTN CN-235-10 was on approach to Bandung when it crashed into Mount Puntang, near Mount Papandayan, West Java, Indonesia at 1:30 pm in bad weather. The aircraft exploded on impact killing all twenty seven passengers and four crew on board.

Mount Papandayan is a complex stratovolcano, located in Garut Regency, to the southeast of the city of Bandung in West Java, Indonesia. It is about 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) to the southwest of the town of Garut. At the summit, there are four large craters which contain active fumarole fields. An eruption in 1772 caused the northeast flank to collapse producing a catastrophic debris avalanche that destroyed 40 villages and killed nearly 3,000 people. The eruption truncated the volcano into a broad shape with two peaks and a flat area 1.1 km wide with Alun-Alun crater in the middle, making the mountain appear as a twin volcano; one of the peaks is called Papandayan and the other Mount Puntang.

Garut is a district and town in West Java of Indonesia, and the former capital of Garut Regency. It is located about 75 km to the southeast of the major city of Bandung.

West Java is an Indonesian province on the western part of the island of Java, with its provincial capital in Bandung. West Java is bordered by the province of Banten and the country's capital region of Jakarta to the west, the Java Sea to the north, the province of Central Java to the east and the Indian Ocean to the south. With Banten, this province is the native homeland of the Sundanese people, the second-largest ethnic group in Indonesia.