A disgruntled software engineer who had conflicts with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) intentionally crashed a small plane into a federal office building containing multiple tax offices in Austin, Texas. Authorities identified the pilot as Joseph Andrew Stack, a 53-year-old Texas resident who also burned his house down and left a suicide note explaining his actions.
“If you’re reading this, you no doubt have to ask yourself, ‘Why did this have to happen?’” Stack said in the note. “The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time.”
The suicide note was posted to a social media Web site, but was quickly taken down at the request of the FBI. In the note, he discussed his thoughts, “in light of the storm raging in my head.”
Stack launched into a tirade against the federal government claiming it brainwashed children into a false belief that the government stands for justice for all or for freedom. He also spoke out against taxation without representation but said that people who truly stand up for such a principle are labeled a “crackpot, traitor or worse.”
In addition, the kamikaze pilot railed against the bailed out executives of General Motors who are “a handful of thugs and plunderers,” as well as drug and insurance companies who are “murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses of the victims they cripple.”
Stack was also angry with politicians of all party affiliations and the IRS, which he believed unfairly provided tax loopholes to big corporations and the Catholic Church, but not to average Americans.
Stack admitted that he tried to exploit the same loopholes, but it backfired. He wrote that the “little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000-plus, ten years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0.”
The note was initially posted Tuesday, but was modified yesterday at 6:42 a.m. According to local News Corporation affiliate MyFoxAustin, Stack set his home on fire, which was located six miles from the crash area. It was reported that his 12-year-old stepdaughter and another unidentified woman were rescued by a neighbor from the burning residence.
Following this, Stack departed in a single-engine, Piper Cherokee airplane from Georgetown Municipal Airport, north of Austin around 9:40 a.m., but did not file a flight plan. He intentionally crashed the small single engine plane into the second floor of the seven-story Echelon office building around 10 a.m. local time (11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time).
The crash shook and shattered many of the buildings windows and knocked employees to the floor. Nearby buildings also shook as black and gray smoke billowed into the sky.
A witness named Cynthia told CNN the building “shook almost like an earthquake.” She told the news outlet that she followed her co-workers as soon as they ran out of the building.
“People were on the second floor. They couldn’t get out. They were hanging out the windows screaming for help,” she said.
The federal building employed 199 IRS workers, two of which were rushed to an area hospital; one person was unaccounted for. Firefighters were able to control the flames and within 75 minutes the flames were dying out.
President Barack Obama was notified of the attack shortly after noon. In addition, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) scrambled two F-16 fighter jets from an airfield in Houston to conduct air patrols in response. However, the Department of Homeland Security stated that there was no reason to suspect terrorist activity. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is sending staff from Dallas and Washington, D.C. to the scene.
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