Indonesian forces recovered Nicholas Gosselin’s body after rebels claimed responsibility for shooting him and burning the aircraft.
An American pilot has been confirmed dead after separatist fighters shot him and burned his aircraft at a remote airstrip in Indonesia’s Highland Papua province, and Indonesian security forces have since recovered his body.
Nicholas F. Gosselin was flying a single-engine Pilatus PC-6 Porter, registration PK-RCY, for Indonesian aviation company PT AMA when it went down at Ipdeheik Airstrip in Balinggama village, Yahukimo regency. The aircraft departed Wamena at 6:30 a.m. local time Thursday and reported landing at Balinggama around 6:46 a.m. Communication with personnel at the airstrip was lost shortly afterward, according to Indonesia’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
Sebby Sambom, spokesman for the West Papua National Liberation Army, known as TPNPB, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying fighters shot Gosselin and set the aircraft on fire because it had violated a standing ultimatum barring civilian flights from areas the group considers its operational zones. Sambom alleged the plane had been used to carry Indonesian military personnel and supplies into the region.
Indonesian military officials disputed that claim. Lt. Col. Wirya Artadiguna, spokesman for the military’s Habema Operations Command, said the aircraft’s seven passengers, including three women, were unharmed and were all Papuan civilians, and he denied the plane had been transporting troops. Wirya said security forces have identified the group responsible for Gosselin’s killing as OPM XVI/Yahukimo, a local separatist faction led by a man identified as Elkius Kobak. The Habema Command has deployed additional personnel to the area to prevent follow-up attacks and is working to locate the group, Wirya said.
Brig. Gen. Riyanto, deputy commander of the Habema Operations Command, confirmed that security personnel recovered Gosselin’s body after securing the area. Riyanto offered condolences to Gosselin’s family and said the military’s priorities were rescuing the surviving passengers, securing the site, protecting nearby residents and supporting the effort to bring those responsible to justice. Gosselin’s body was subsequently flown to Timika, in Central Papua, to be turned over to authorities.
PT AMA has operated in Papua since 1959, flying food, fuel and mail into remote villages across the region, according to the company. The airline has not issued a public statement on the attack. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta.
TPNPB, the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement, has waged a low-level insurgency against Indonesian rule since the 1960s and has been designated a terrorist organization by the Indonesian government. In one of its deadliest attacks, TPNPB fighters killed at least 24 construction workers in Nduga regency in December 2018, an assault Indonesian authorities labeled the Nduga massacre. In July 2022, roughly twenty TPNPB gunmen opened fire on traders in the same regency, killing nine and wounding four bystanders.
The group has targeted civilian pilots before. In February 2023, TPNPB fighters captured New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens after he landed a small commercial plane at an airstrip in Nduga regency, holding him for nearly 600 days before his release in September 2024. Yahukimo regency, where Thursday’s attack took place, recorded 35 armed clashes in 2025, more than any other regency in Papua, with at least 10 additional incidents in the first three months of 2026. In February 2026, TPNPB fighters shot and killed the pilot and co-pilot of another commercial aircraft during landing, with Sambom again claiming the airline had been transporting Indonesian security forces.
Papua’s insurgency traces back to a disputed 1969 vote, in which just over 1,000 hand-selected Papuans voted to remain part of Indonesia following the departure of Dutch colonial administrators. International observers have long criticized the vote as neither free nor representative, while Indonesia maintains the outcome affirmed its sovereignty over the region.
Gosselin, according to his own professional profiles, had flown for PT AMA since 2024, operating aircraft into remote Papuan airstrips out of Sentani. He previously worked as a pilot in Alaska for Grant Aviation and studied at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts.
