Close shave for IAF Chief as US sailor shoots down 2 at Pearl Harbour naval bas
05 Dec 2019
Indian Air Force Chief Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria and his team had a narrow escape when a US sailor fatally shot two people and wounded a third at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in Hawaii on Wednesday before committing suicide.
The two people killed were Department of Defence civilian employees, while a third civilian was wounded but "in stable condition at (an) area hospital," AFP reported citing an official.
The IAF Chief was in Pearl Harbor to attend a conference of air force chiefs organized by the United States.
According to sources, Indian Air Force (IAF) Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria and his team were present at the base when the incident occurred. However, they were at the Air Force base, while the shooting took place at Naval base.
While the general area is the same, there was some distance between the shooter and the 21 Air Chiefs, who were there to participate in the Pacific Air Force Chiefs Conference (PACS-2019), says the report.
The shooting took place near the south entrance of the sprawling base located on the southern shore of Oahu. The base hosts both the Navy and Air Force.
The shooting took place at around 2:30 pm, prompting a lockdown of the facility for more than an hour, a statement issued by the base said. "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 himself."
The incident took place three days before the 78th anniversary of the 1941 Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that left 2,403 US service members dead.
In a similar incident, a Xerox employee shot dead seven of his colleagues in Hawaii in 1999.