‘Black flight’: Charter flight boss charged over alleged plot to smuggle Australians into Indonesia

Singapore: The owner of a small Queensland aviation business is expected to appear in court over an alleged plot to smuggle an Australian man on bail for kidnapping, and another wanted for large-scale drug trafficking, into Indonesia.

Grant Schultz, 42, the owner of Rockhampton-based Stirling Helicopters, has been charged with two counts of people smuggling and is expected to appear in a Queensland court on Thursday.

The alleged “black flight” was busted by Indonesian immigration authorities on November 17 at Merauke, in the Indonesian province of South Papua, when two passengers were discovered on board a twin-engine Piper aircraft without visas or passports.

The flight from the remote Queensland community of Coen to Merauke was flown by an Indonesian pilot and a young Australian pilot, whom this masthead understands is named Jay Davis.

Sources close to the company have told this masthead that Davis may have been fooled or misled about the nature of the mission.

Davis and the two alleged fugitives were flown to Jakarta, where they remain detained.

Indonesian immigration authorities told this masthead that the two “stowaways” allegedly planned to stay in the country.

Schultz allegedly “coordinated a sophisticated people smuggling operation to help the fugitives escape from Australia”, AFP Detective Superintendent Adrian Telfer said on Thursday.

“We allege he co-ordinated a network of connected charter flights on different planes and with different companies over a week to smuggle the fugitives from NSW to north Queensland and then on to Indonesia,” Telfer said.

He said final flight departed Queensland with its transponder turned off.

“Black flights attempting to exploit the remoteness of north Queensland can try to fly under the radar by turning off transponders, but every time they land and take off at a remote airstrip, they attract attention,” Telfer said.

Schultz was charged after his home at Woolshed, in south-east Queensland, was raided on Wednesday, along with the aviation company’s Rockhampton base. AFP were again at the business on Thursday morning.

Records from a now-defunct website suggest Schultz had businesses in aviation, heavy haulage, earth moving and house removals.

Employees attached to at least one of these divisions received emails this week informing them that the business was being liquidated, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.

Schultz made headlines in 2023 when he survived a helicopter crash while battling bushfires.

Telfer said charter operators should inform authorities if approached to facilitate suspicious travel.

“It’s pretty obvious if people approach you to get out of the country without telling authorities, I think that’s something that would raise your suspicion,” he said.

Telfer did not provide a figure paid by the two fugitives but said the alleged smuggling involved a “very sophisticated strategy” that would likely come at “a very large cost”.

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