Indonesia recovers body of New Zealand helicopter pilot killed in Papua attack

Indonesian security forces on Tuesday recovered the body of a New Zealand pilot who was killed in an alleged separatist attack in the restive Papua region, officials said.

Glen Malcolm Conning, a helicopter pilot for Indonesian aviation company PT Intan Angkasa Air Service, was shot dead on Monday by gunmen allegedly with the West Papua Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement, shortly after landing in Alama, a remote district in the Mimika regency of Central Papua province.

The attackers released all six passengers, including two health workers and two children, said Bayu Suseno, the spokesperson of the Cartenz Peace Taskforce, the joint security force set up by the Indonesian government to deal with separatist groups in Papua.

“We suspect that the armed group that shot the pilot was from Nduga district, led by Egianus Kogoya,” Suseno said in a video statement. He described the group as the most dangerous and very active in disturbing the security around Timika, a town that feeds the Grasberg mine which is nearly half owned by U.S.-based Freeport-McMoRan and is run by PT Freeport Indonesia.

“This group is our main target to arrest this year,” Suseno said.

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

Kogoya and his troops stormed a single-engine plane shortly after it landed on a small runway in a mountainous village. He said they wouldn’t release Mehrtens unless Indonesia agrees to Papua becoming a sovereign country.

A year and a half later, Mehrtens remains a captive of the rebels.

Security forces found the body of Conning on Tuesday inside his helicopter that was still parked on a small runway in Alama, in a mountainous district that can be reached only by small aircraft, said Lt. Gen. Richard Tampubolon, the Chief of the Joint Regional Command of Papua. He said bad weather conditions halted their search and evacuation operation on Monday.

The rescue operation on Tuesday also evacuated about 13 people, mostly teachers and health workers from Alama, who were traumatized by the incident and fear of their safety.

Tampubolon said the body of the pilot was flown to a hospital in Timika for an autopsy before being returned to his family.

“A preliminary medical examination showed gunshot wounds and slashes from sharp weapons on his body,” Tampubolon said. “We strongly condemned this inhumane killing of a pilot who had made many contributions in providing humanitarian services to remote communities in Papua.”

West Papua Liberation Army spokesperson Sebby Sambom said in a voice message to The Associated Press on Monday that they had designated the area as a restricted zone where civilian aircraft were prohibited from landing. He blamed the pilot for disregarding their warnings.

The kidnapping and killing reflects the deteriorating security situation in Papua, Indonesia’s easternmost region and a former Dutch colony in the western part of New Guinea that is ethnically and culturally distinct from much of Indonesia.

Papua was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969, after a U.N.-sponsored ballot that was widely seen as a sham. Since then, a low-level insurgency has simmered in the region, which was divided into six provinces.

Flying is the only practical way to access many areas in the mountainous easternmost provinces of Papua and West Papua