The deadly shooting of a plane at Mulia Airport, Puncak Jaya, by an unknown armed group, has prompted flight operator PT Trigana Air Service to suspend services to the regency, in Papua.
“The management will not run flights to Mulia. They will resume when security is guaranteed by the authorities,” the company’s general manager Bustomi Eka said when contacted by The Jakarta Post on Sunday.
The company has been servicing flight routes to the province since 1992.
The incident on Sunday was reported to have taken place at 8:21 a.m. local time (Papua is two hours ahead of Jakarta).
A Trigana plane with the registration number of PK-YRF and with five people on board came under fire when touching down. The perpetrators were believed to have opened fire from a nearby hill.
The shooting caused the pilot to lose control of the plane, which plowed into a warehouse.
A passenger, named Leiron Kogoya, 35, a journalist with the Papua Post of Nabire, was killed and the other four people, including the pilot and co-pilot, were injured.
Leiron sustained fatal injuries to the neck. The bullets injured pilot Beby Astek, 40, on the left ankle; co-pilot Willy Resubun, 30, on the right arm; Yanti, 30, on the right arm and Korwa, 4, on his left hand.
“Police personnel and soldiers are in pursuit of the perpetrators,” Johanes Nugraha Wicaksono, the spokesperson of Papua Police, told the Post.
Leiron, who was covering the Puncak Jaya election, was the third victim of a string of mysterious shooting incidents in the regency this year.
Kismarovit was shot dead on Jan. 20 and Sukarno, a member of the Mobile Brigade (Brimob) police unit, was ambushed on Jan. 28.
The shootings have haunted the regency since 2010 but the authorities have yet to catch any perpetrators. The Trigana incident may indicate that the armed group is broadening its targets.
Flight stoppages have worried some residents.
“If true, the stoppages will set us back. Trigana has been carrying our daily needs,” Agus, a resident of Mulia, said.
Land transportation, he said, had also become vulnerable to attacks and needed escort by security personnel.
The director of Imparsial, a human rights organization, Poengky Indarti said that the Trigana incident showed the vulnerability to attacks and made the area isolated.
She suspected a group of people had plotted the attack in order to gain commercial benefit from a chaotic situation.
“It’s very likely they will offer security escort services. I suspect any group trying to create chaos in Mulia,” she said.