1996 Timika shooting

On the morning of 15 April 1996, a mass shooting occurred at Mozes Kilangin Airport in Timika, Irian Jaya (present-day Central Papua), Indonesia. According to military spokesmen, the gunman, identified as Second Lieutenant Sanurip, a member of the Indonesian Army's special forces unit Kopassus, had been reprimanded by another officer for being noisy after waking in a hangar being used as a military command post amid unrest that had erupted in Timika. In apparent reaction to the reprimand, Sanurip began firing his assault rifle at approximately 7 a.m.

He first shot five fellow military personnel, including Lieutenant Colonel Adel Gustinigo, commander of Detachment 81 (the counter-terrorist arm of Kopassus), along with a major and a captain. He then continued shooting indiscriminately at anyone in his path as he ran out of the hangar. Within seconds, he killed 16 people in total: five Kopassus officers, six ABRI (Indonesian Armed Forces) soldiers, and five civilians, including New Zealand national Michael Findlay, a helicopter pilot employed by Airfast. Another 13 people were wounded, comprising ten ABRI officers and three civilians, among them an Airfast employee named Sarjito. Sanurip was reported to have fired 52 shots during the attack before being subdued by other soldiers after being shot in the leg.

The motive for the attack was not immediately established. It was suggested Sanurip may have been suffering from depression, possibly linked to a malaria infection. Reports also circulated that an army transport plane carrying the bodies of two soldiers killed in Mapenduma had made a fuel stop at Timika airport that morning, and that Sanurip began shooting after recognizing one of the deceased as a friend; however, military spokesmen stated this account was untrue and that there was no connection between the arrival of the bodies and the shooting. Initial reports of a heated argument between Sanurip and his superiors prior to the incident were also repudiated.

Sanurip was tried by a military tribunal in Jayapura, which sentenced him to death on 23 April 1997. Following the verdict, Amnesty International raised concerns that the court had rejected evidence concerning Sanurip's mental health. His appeal was dismissed by the Military High Court in Surabaya on 18 June 1997; the court also discharged him from the Indonesian Armed Forces and ordered him to pay a nominal court fee. He subsequently lodged a further appeal to the Indonesian Supreme Court. The military tribunal rejected the defense argument that Sanurip's actions were the result of malaria-induced depression. He later died in a hospital. The shooting is described as one of the deadliest workplace shootings in modern history.