Papua separatists claim to have shot dead a US pilot who transported Indonesian troops

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A Papua separatist group said Thursday it has shot dead an American pilot who allegedly brought Indonesian troops into a ‘conflict zone.’

In a statement, Sebby Sambom, spokesman for the West Papua Liberation Army, or TPNPB, claimed the group’s fighters in Yahukimo regency shot dead American pilot Nicholas F. Goselin and set fire to an aircraft operated by PT AMA, an Indonesian airline, in Balinggama village.

There was no immediate comment from the Indonesian military or the U.S. Embassy. The Transportation Ministry’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation said the plane was carrying one pilot and seven passengers. After the pilot reported that the aircraft had landed, communications with personnel at the airstrip were subsequently lost, the ministry said in a statement.

Papua police’s Cartenz Peace Task Force unit said they were still working to verify the condition of the pilot and the seven passengers and expected to deploy a team there on Friday. Yusuf Sutejo, the spokesperson for the unit said response efforts were complicated by the area’s challenging terrain. There is no road access to the location, leaving aircraft as the only means of reaching the mountainous site, and that is highly dependent on the weather.

Sambom said the aircraft was targeted because it allegedly violated a TPNPB ultimatum banning civilian flights from entering areas the separatist group considers its operational zones. There was no immediate information on the Indonesians who had been on board.

The spokesman alleged that civilian aircraft have been used to transport Indonesian military personnel and logistics into Papua’s remote interior and said the pilot was killed because the aircraft continued operating despite the group’s warning. The claims could not be independently verified.

Sambom called on Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto to open international negotiations aimed at resolving the decades-long conflict in Papua, which separatists say has resulted in civilian deaths and mass displacement.

“The shooting of the American pilot is the result of the failure of the Indonesian, U.S. and Dutch governments, as well as the United Nations, to address the root causes of the conflict in Papua, which has persisted for 64 years,” the group’s spokesman said in the statement.

He also urged the United Nations to facilitate talks involving the Indonesian government, the TPNPB and Papuan representatives, and warned that the group would target other civilian aircraft it believes are assisting military operations in the region.

Thursday’s killing was the latest violence against foreign pilots in the Papua region.

In February 2023, Egianus Kogoya, a regional commander in the Free Papua Movement, abducted Philip Mark Mehrtens, a pilot from Christchurch, New Zealand, who was working for Indonesian aviation company Susi Air. He was freed in September 2024.

In August 2024, the TNPB gunmen stormed a helicopter and killed its New Zealand pilot, Glen Malcolm Conning, who worked for Indonesian aviation company PT Intan Angkasa Air Service. He was shot shortly after landing in a remote village in the Mimika district carrying several indigenous Papuans who were freed.

Papua was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 under a United Nations-sponsored ballot that was widely seen as a sham. Since then, a low-level insurgency has simmered. The conflict spiked in the past year, with dozens of rebels, security forces and civilians killed.

Conflicts between Indigenous Papuans and Indonesian security forces are common in the impoverished Papua region, a former Dutch colony in the western part of New Guinea that is ethnically and culturally distinct from much of Indonesia. Conflict has spiked in the past year, with dozens of rebels, security forces and civilians killed.

Niniek Karmini, The Associated Press