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AUSTIN, Texas - A software engineer upset with the Internal Revenue Service set fire to his home Thursday and then flew his plane into a multistory office building that houses federal tax employees, authorities said.
The pilot was presumed to have died in the crash, federal law enforcement officials said. At least two people were injured and a third person who worked in the building was unaccounted for, fire officials said.
The crash caused a raging fire that sent black smoke billowing from the seven-story Echelon Building. The fire was extinguished hours later.
Federal law enforcement officials said they were investigating whether the pilot crashed on purpose in an effort to blow up IRS offices.
About 190 IRS employees work in the building, and IRS spokesman Richard C. Sanford the agency was trying to account for all of its workers.
The pilot, listed in FAA and property records as Andrew Joseph Stack III of Austin and identified by law enforcement sources as Joseph Stack, apparently had a long-running dispute with the IRS.
Stack, 53, is listed as the owner of a Piper PA-28 Cherokee registered at a previous address in Lincoln, Calif. Officials believe that is the plane that he crashed Thursday.
A long message posted on a Web site registered to Stack outlined a litany of problems with the IRS and said violence "is the only answer."
"If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, 'Why did this have to happen?' The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time," the note begins.
The Web site was taken offline Thursday afternoon by the hosting company at the request of the FBI.
A senior law enforcement official told NBC's Pete Williams the saga began Thursday morning, when police received a domestic disturbance call at Stack's house, about six miles from the crash site. When they responded, they discovered that the man had lit a fire in his house and fled. They said he went to the Georgetown Municipal Airport, got into his small plane and took off.
A short time later, the plane crashed into the office building about 30 miles away. Federal authorities said they did not know whether the man crashed the plane intentionally, though they said it was a distinct possibility, the official told NBC.
Elbert Hutchins, who lives one house away from Stack's home in a quiet, tree-lined middle-class neighborhood, said the house caught fire about 9:15 a.m. He said a woman and her teenage daughter drove up 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!' "
A plane belonging to Stack took off a short time later from the airport in Georgetown, and the pilot didn't file a flight plan, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford said.
The Echelon Building is next to a major highway in north Austin, and the crash started fires on several floors of the hulking black building. Dozens of windows were blown out and vehicles traveling on a nearby highway paused to look.
Two people were taken to a hospital, Austin Assistant Fire Chief Harry Evans said. The nature and severity of their injuries weren't immediately clear. A third person was unaccounted for, Evans said. The names of the victims were not immediately released.
Pilot's background
According to California Secretary of State records, Stack had a troubled business history, twice starting software companies that ultimately were suspended by the state's Franchise Tax Board.
He started Software Systems Service Corp. in Lincoln, Calif., but that business license was suspended in 2004 for nonpayment of back taxes totaling $1,153, KCRA-TV in Sacramento reported. Another company, Prowless Engineering Inc. was suspended in 2000 for failure to file a 1994 tax return, according to KCRA.
Stack listed himself as chief executive officer of both companies.
According to records, Stack apparently moved to the Austin area around 2003 and ran Embedded Art, a small, independent software firm specializing in "process control and automation" and "complex software engineering development tasks."
In a rambling 3,200-word statement apparently posted on the company's Web site early Thursday morning and later taken down, Stack appeared to blame the IRS for the loss of tens of thousands in savings and retirement money over the years.
Administrative records show the Web site was registered to Joe Stack of San Marcos, Texas, in 2006.
Stack said his "nightmare" with the federal government dated to the early 1980s.
In one passage, Stack writes: “That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie. It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their 'freedom' … and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.”
He also wrote: "Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it's time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours?
Toward the end, he wrote, “I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over 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 of flesh and sleep well.”
Source: MSNBC.
