Sandy Hook Native Killed While Working As Bush Pilot In Indonesia

NEWTOWN, CT — A Sandy Hook man who was shot and killed while working as a pilot overseas last week will be laid to rest here this weekend.

Nicholas "Nick" Gosselin, 29, was killed on July 2.

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According to an Associated Press news story, Indonesian security forces recovered Gosselin’s body after armed separatists attacked and burned his small aircraft in the Papua region. He had been shot shortly after landing at an airstrip, the Associated Press reported.

A funeral is planned for July 11, then Gosselin will be buried at St. Rose Cemetery in Sandy Hook, according to his obituary.

Gosselin is being remembered for his love of flying, which started at an early age.

According to his family, as a child he built airplane dashboards, including gauges and levers, out of cardboard boxes. By age 11, he was flying flight simulators on his computer. For his 13th birthday, he got a discovery flight at Oxford Airport. He started taking flying lessons and later got a part-time job there working in the hangars, according to his obituary.

The Newtown High School graduate went to college in Massachusetts and got his pilot license. After college, his first job was towing banners and giving skydivers one-way rides from Cape Cod. Multiple pilot jobs followed, including a stint as a bush pilot in Alaska, his family said, in his obituary. Bush pilots fly small aircraft into remote locales.

For the last two years of his life, Gosselin was working as a bush pilot for Associated Mission Aviation in Papua, Indonesia, his obituary states.

After thousands of hours in flight, Gosselin earned the title of captain, “a title of which he was incredibly proud and grateful,” according to his family.

His parents, David and Catherine Gosselin of Sandy Hook, hope to honor their son’s love of aviation by helping others with the same passion succeed.

“We believe in ‘paying it forward’ by assisting the next group of pilots,” the family said, in the obituary.

In lieu of flowers, the family is asking for donations in his memory to go to a new scholarship to help future pilots, the Capt. Nicholas F. Gosselin Memorial Scholarship Fund at Bridgewater State University.

Checks can be made payable to the BSU Foundation and mailed to the Bridgewater State University Foundation, P.O. Box 42, Bridgewater, MA 02324, with the fund name noted on the memo line. To make a gift online, visit bridgew.edu/give and select “CPT Nicholas F. Gosselin '18 Memorial Scholarship” in the fund designation drop down.

The Honan Funeral Home in Newtown is in charge of the arrangements.

Read the Associated Press story HERE.

Read the obituary HERE.