Lauderdale County Sheriff Billy Sollie confirmed the deaths and injuries. He said eight people were taken to hospitals, some in critical condition.

"He had a shotgun and a semiautomatic rifle and he appeared to open fire at random on employees,'' Sollie said.

The sheriff's department did not immediately confirm the name of the shooter, but co-workers identified him as Doug Williams.

The shooting broke out around 9:30 a.m. Sollie said no other individuals were involved and his officers were securing the scene. Investigators did not know of a motive, he said.

"There was no indication it involved race or gender as far as his targets were concerned,'' he said.

But Booker Steverson, a Lockheed Martin employee who was helping assemble an airplane when he heard the first shot, said Williams was known as a "racist'' who didn't like blacks. Williams was white.

Jim Payton, who is retired from the plant but worked with Williams for about a year, said: "when I first heard about it, he was the first thing that came to my mind.''

He said Williams had talked about wanting to kill people.

About two dozen people waited near a busy road outside the plant at midday. Law enforcement agents made vehicles go through checkpoints.

Officials at the plant declined to comment and a Lockheed Martin national spokeswoman was unable to immediately provide details.

"We're just trying to gather information and are working with state and local authorities to determine the details of the incident,'' said spokeswoman Meaghan Mariman from the company's headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland. She said the plant employs roughly 150 people.

Lockheed Martin is the largest defense contractor in the United States. The corporation had sales of $24 billion in 2001. It employs about 125,000 people.

The Meridian plant builds parts for the C-130J Hercules and vertical stabilizers for F-22 Raptor jets, which are assembled at a plant in Marietta, Georgia, along with military transport planes.

Subsidiary Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. is based in Fort Worth, Texas.

Meridian, a city of about 40,000 near the Alabama line, has an economy largely dependent on the military. Besides the Lockheed Martin plant, the area is home to a naval air station and an Air National Guard training facility.