KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19. 2010 / NEWS
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Private plane crashes into Austin building
Pilot had had run-ins with the IRS, which worked in the office building
A firefighter on a ladder works to put out a fire at a seven-story building in Austin, Texas, on Thursday after Joseph A. Stack crashed a small private plane into the building, which houses the Internal Revenue Service. Stack had posted a screed online Thursday that cited run-ins he had had with the IRS.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ralph Barrera/AUSTIN-AMERICAN STATESMAN
At least one person in the building was missing.
AUSTIN, Texas — A software engineer furious with the Internal Revenue Service launched a suicide attack on the agency Thursday by crushing his small plane into an office building containing nearly 200 IRS employees, setting off a raging fire that sent workers running for their lives.
The FBI tentatively identified the pilot as Joseph A. Stack, 53. Law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still going on, said that before taking off, Stack apparently set fire to his house and posted a long anti-government screed on the web. It was dated Thursday and signed "Joe Stack (1956-2010)."
In it, the author cited run-ins he had with the IRS and ranted about the tax agency, government bailouts and corporate America's "thugs and plunderers."
"I have had all I can stand," he wrote, adding: "I choose not to keep looking over my shoulder at 'big brother' while he strips my carcass."
The pilot took off in a singleengine Piper Cherokee from an airport in Georgetown, about 30 miles from Austin, without filing a flight plan. He flew low over the
Austin skyline before plowing into the side of the hulking, seven-story, black-glass building just before 10 a.m. with a thunderous explosion that instantly stirred memories of Sept. 11.
rushed to get out.
Flames shot from the building, windows exploded, a huge pillar of black smoke rose over the city, and terrified workers
The Pentagon scrambled two F-16 fighter jets from Houston to patrol the skies over the burning building before it became clear that it was the act of a lone pilot, and President Barack Obama was briefed.
"It felt like a bomb blew off," said Peggy Walker, an IRS revenue officer who was sitting at her desk. "The ceiling caved in and windows blew in. We got up and ran."
Stack was presumed dead, though police said they had not recovered his body as of Thursday evening. At least 13 people were injured, with two reported in critical condition. About 190 IRS employees work in the building.
Gerry Cullen was eating breakfast at a restaurant across the street when the plane struck the building and "vanished in a fireball."
Matt Farney, who was in the parking lot of a nearby Home Depot, said he saw a low-flying plane near some apartments just before it crashed. "I figured he was going to buzz the apartments or he was showing off," Farney said. "It was insane. It didn't look like he was out of control or anything."
The building, in a heavily congested section of Austin, was still smoldering six hours later, with the worst of the damage on the second and third floors.
"It felt like a bomb blew off. The ceiling caved in and windows blew in."
The entire outside of the second floor was gone on the side of it.
PEGGY WALKER IRS revenue officer
building where the plane hit. Support beams were bent inward. Venetian blinds dangled from blown-out windows, and large sections of the exterior were
Andrew Jacobson, an IRS
blackened with soot. It was not immediately clear if any tax records were destroyed.
revenue officer who was on the second floor when the plane hit with a "big whooomp" and then a second explosion, said about six people couldn't use the stairwell because of smoke and debris. He found a metal bar to break a window so the group could crawl out onto a concrete ledge, where they were rescued by firefighters. His bloody hands were bandaged.
Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said "heroic actions" by federal employees may explain why the death toll was so low.
The FBI was investigating. The National Transportation Safety Board sent an investigator as well.
In the long,rambling,self
Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican from Austin on the Homeland Security Committee, said the panel will take up the issue of how to better protect buildings from attacks with planes.
described "rant" that Stack apparently posted on the Internet, he began: "If you're reading this, you're no doubt asking yourself, 'Why did this have to happen?'
He recounted his financial reverses, his difficulty finding work in Austin, and at least two clashes with the IRS, one of them after he filed no return because, he said, he had no income, the
"violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer."
"I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over
"Violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer."
other after he failed to report his wife Sheryl's income.
He railed against politicians, the Catholic Church, the "unthinkable atrocities" committed by big business, and the government bailouts that followed. He said he slowly came to the conclusion that
POSTED ONLINE BY JOSEPH A. STACK Pilot of crashed plane
and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother Irs man, let's try something different; take my pound
flesh and sleep well," he wrote.
According to California state records, Stack had a troubled business history, twice starting software companies in California that ultimately were suspended by the state's tax board, one in 2000, the other in 2004. Also, his first wife
filed for bankruptcy in 1999, listing a debt to the IRS of nearly $126,000.
The blaze at Stack's home, a red-brick house on a tree-lined street in a middle-class neighborhood six miles from the crash site, caved in the roof and blew out the windows.
Elbert Hutchins, who lives one house away, said the house caught fire about 9:15 a.m. He said a woman and her teenage daughter drove up to the house before firefighters arrived.
"They both were very, very distraught." said Hutchins, a retiree who said he didn't know the family well. "That's our house!" they cried. "That's our house!"
Red Cross spokeswoman Marty McKellips said the agency was treating two people who live in the house.
INTERNATIONAL
Soldiers stage coup in Niger, suspend constitution
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NIAMEY, Niger — Renegade soldiers in armored vehicles stormed Niger's presidential palace with a hail of gunfire in broad daylight, kidnapping the country's strongman president and then appearing on state television to declare they staged a successful coup.
The soldiers also said Thursday on state TV that the country's constitution had been suspended and all its institutions dissolved. The spokesman for the soldiers said the country is now being led by the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy and asked their countrymen and the international community to have faith in their ideals which "could turn Niger into an example of democracy and of good governance."
Smoke rose from the white-hued multistory palace complex and the echo of machine-gunfire for at least two hours sent frightened residents running for cover, emptying the desert country's downtown boule-
T r a o r e
Amadou, a local
journalist who
was in the presi-
dency when the
shooting began,
said President
M a m d o u
Tandja was kid-
napped by mutinous
troops.
cratic elections in 1999 that followed an era of coups and rebellions. But instead of stepping down as mandated by law on Dec. 22, he triggered a political crisis by pushing through a new constitution in August that removed term limits and gave him near-totalitarian powers.
The ease with which Niger's democratic institutions have been swept aside has marked a setback for a region struggling to shake off autocratic rulers. In Guinea, a military junta seized power in December 2008 after the death of the country's longtime dictator, only to have the junta leader go into voluntary exile after he survived an assassination attempt a year later.
Niger has become increasingly isolated since then, with the 15-nation regional bloc of West African states suspending Niger from its ranks and the U.S. government cutting off non-humanitarian aid and imposing travel restrictions on some government officials.
French radio station Radio France Internationale reported that the soldiers burst in and neutralized the presidential guard before politely escorting Tandja outside to a waiting car which drove him toward a military camp on the outskirts of the capital. His whereabouts remained unknown hours later when the soldiers took to the airwaves to announce the coup.
"Armored vehicles came into the palace and began shooting at the building."
The nation's latest troubles began
MOUSSA MOUNKAILA Palace driver
Tandja first took power in demo-
suddenly in NIamey on Thursday afternoon, when gunfire broke out around the impoverished nation's small presidency.
"Armored vehicles came into the palace
and began shooting at the building," said Moussa Mounkaila, a palace driver. He said the mutinous troops had come from a military barracks at Tondibia, about seven miles (12 kilometers) west of the capital. Mounkaila said he saw smoke rising from the damaged presidency before he jumped over a wall and fled.
Tandja had just gathered government ministers for a Cabinet
meeting when the gunfire erupted outside.
A diplomat in neighboring Burkina Faso said the mutinous soldiers are led by Col. Abdoulaye Adamou Harouna, the former aide-d-camp of Niger's previous coup leader Maj. Daouda Mallam Wanke. In Niamey, soldiers contacted by telephone inside their barracks said the coup was led by Col. Adamou Harouna, but gave a different first name — saying it was Djibril, not
Abdoulaye, and did not confirm whether or not he was an aide to Wanke.
It was Wanke that led the 1999 coup, seizing power after the country's former military strongman was gunned down in an incident that was dubbed "an accident." Wanke, however, organized democratic elections less than a year later, which Tandja won. The diplomat, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the
media, said that Haroua — once Wanke's top aide — is part of an army faction that is deeply disillusioned with Tandja for violating his constitutionally mandated term limit.
They see him as having violated the trust the military initial placed in him when they ceded power in elections 11 years ago, he said. It was not immediately possible to confirm the diplomat's account or to resolve the discrepancy in the name.
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