A shooting incident took place at Pearl Harbour Naval Shipyard in Hawaii on Wednesday where US sailor fatally shot two people and wounded a third before killing himself.
Indian Air Force officials on Thursday said that Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria was attending a conference at the historic military base America when it was put under lockdown as authorities were responding to the shooting incident.
“All Indian Air Force delegation members including the chief are safe and unaffected by the incident. The Pacific Air Chief Symposium (PACS-2019) also continued as the incident took place on the other side of the Pearl Harbour base,” the officials told news agency ANI.
The conference is being attended by Air Chiefs from across the Indo-Pacific region who will provide perspectives on common challenges faced and on shared mutual interests while focusing on relevant topics like Regional Security, Domain Awareness, MultiDomain Awareness, Interoperability, and HADR.
Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam security forces responded to a reported shooting at a dry dock at @PHNSYIMF. Initial reports indicate the shooter & two shipyard civilian employees are deceased, & one shipyard civilian is in stable condition at a local hospital. 1/5 #PearlHarbor
— Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (@JointBasePHH) December 5, 2019
A statement issued by the base said the shooting took place at around 2:30 pm, prompting a lockdown of the facility for more than an hour. “The shooter has been identified as a US Sailor,” the base said in a tweet. “The sailor reportedly shot and injured three Department of Defense civilian workers before shooting themself.” Officials said the Navy was leading the investigation into the shooting to determine what prompted it.
One witness told local media he was sitting at his computer when he heard shots fired and rushed to the window, where he saw three victims on the ground.