A Papua separatist group claimed on July 2, 2026, that its fighters shot and killed an American pilot in a remote Indonesian village, setting his aircraft ablaze and leaving seven passengers stranded at an airstrip reachable only by air.
A spokesman for the West Papua Liberation Army (TPNPB) said fighters fatally shot Nicholas F. Goselin and torched a plane operated by PT AMA, an Indonesian airline, in Balinggama village. Indonesia’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation confirmed the aircraft was carrying one pilot and seven passengers, and said contact with airstrip personnel went dark after Goselin reported that the plane had landed. The U.S. Embassy offered no immediate comment.
Evacuation Stalled by Weather and Terrain
An evacuation team dispatched on July 2 was forced to turn around due to poor weather conditions, military spokesman Lt. Col. Wirya Artadiguna said. A second attempt on July 3 by a 10-person operation recovered Goselin’s body, which was later turned over to the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta. The site presented a severe logistical challenge: there is no road access to Balinggama village. The rugged terrain complicated every step of the response.
The Indonesian military said the seven passengers — all indigenous Papuan civilians, including three women — were unharmed.
The Indonesian military flatly denied that the plane had been used to ferry troops. But TPNPB spokesman Sebby Sambom insisted the aircraft had violated the separatist group’s ban on civilian flights in areas it designates as operational zones, and alleged that civilian planes have routinely been used to move Indonesian military personnel and supplies into the remote interior.
Bishop Yanuarius Theofilus Matopai You, a commissioner of PT AMA and the indigenous prelate of Jayapura, rejected those allegations directly, saying AMA flights are dedicated solely to humanitarian purposes and are never used to transport Indonesian military or police personnel, TPNPB members, or ammunition. He said the aircraft had flown into Balinggama roughly once a week and had never previously received threats over its operations there.
Separatists Blame Three Governments and the U.N.
Sambom said Goselin was killed because the aircraft continued flying despite explicit warnings from the group. He also called on Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto to open international negotiations over the conflict and urged the United Nations to facilitate talks among the Indonesian government, the TPNPB, and Papuan representatives. The TPNPB warned it would continue targeting civilian aircraft it believes are supporting military operations in the region.
Sambom said the pilot’s death resulted from longstanding inaction by Jakarta, Washington, the Netherlands, and the United Nations in resolving a conflict that has now stretched across 64 years.
His call for international mediation reflects a conflict that separatists say has produced mass civilian displacement and deaths alongside the military toll. Papua, a former Dutch colony, was absorbed into Indonesia in 1969 under a United Nations-sponsored ballot that has been widely condemned as a sham, laying the foundation for a struggle that has never fully subsided.
A Pattern of Attacks on Foreign Pilots
Foreign pilots operating in Papua’s isolated interior have become a deliberate target for separatist fighters. In February 2023, separatist forces kidnapped New Zealand pilot Philip Mark Mehrtens while he was flying for Susi Air, an Indonesian aviation company. Mehrtens was held captive and ultimately freed in September 2024.
The violence has not relented since. In August 2024, TPNPB gunmen stormed a helicopter shortly after it landed in a remote village in the Mimika district and shot and killed its pilot, Glen Malcolm Conning, who flew for PT Intan Angkasa Air Service. The indigenous Papuans that Conning had been transporting were released unharmed.
International Reaction
Amnesty International Indonesia’s executive director, Usman Hamid, called the killing “a tragic and profound violation of human rights” and said the burning of the aircraft represented “a stark deterioration of civilian protection in the Papua region.” The rights group is pressing Indonesian authorities to investigate the shooting as an unlawful killing.
Insurgency Deepens Across the Province
The broader conflict between Indigenous Papuans and Indonesian security forces has escalated sharply over the past year, with dozens of combatants, security personnel, and civilians killed. The insurgency has persisted across the province’s rugged highlands and dense jungle for decades, fueled by longstanding grievances over political autonomy, resource extraction, and allegations of human rights abuses by Indonesian forces — claims Jakarta has consistently disputed.
The killing of Goselin marked the latest episode in what separatists have framed as a deliberate strategy against aircraft they view as instruments of Indonesian military operations. Whether the claims surrounding his flight can be independently verified remains unclear.