IRS foe crashes plane into Texas office building

AUSTIN, Texas - A software engineer furious with the Internal Revenue Service launched a suicide attack on the agency yesterday by crashing his small plane into an office building containing nearly 200 IRS employees, setting off a raging fire that sent workers running for their lives.

By last night, emergency crews had found two bodies in the wreckage, one of them presumed to be the pilot.

The FBI tentatively identified the pilot as Joseph Stack, 53. He is believed to have attended community college in the Harrisburg area in the 1970s after graduating from the Milton Hershey School.

Law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that before taking off, Stack apparently set fire to his house and posted a long antigovernment screed on the Web. It was dated yesterday 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 single-engine Piper PA-28 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 9/11.

Flames shot from the building, windows exploded, a huge pillar of black smoke rose over the city, and terrified workers rushed to escape.

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 Obama was briefed.

Austin Fire Department Battalion Chief Palmer Buck said last night that authorities "have now accounted for everybody," but he declined to discuss the identities of the two bodies found. Authorities said earlier that the pilot was presumed dead and that one worker in the building was missing.

At least 13 people were injured, with two reported in critical condition. About 190 IRS employees work in the building.

The entire outside of the second floor was gone on the side of the building where the plane hit. Support beams were bent inward. Venetian blinds dangled from blown-out windows, and large sections of the exterior were blackened with soot. It was not immediately clear whether any tax records were destroyed.

Andrew Jacobson, an IRS revenue officer who was on the second floor when the plane hit with a "big whoomp" and then a second explosion, said that about six people could not 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 that "heroic actions" by federal employees might explain why the casualty toll was so low.

The FBI was investigating. The National Transportation Safety Board sent an investigator as well.

Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican from Austin on the Homeland Security Committee, said the panel would take up the issue of how to better protect buildings from attacks with planes.

Stack apparently attended Harrisburg Area Community College in the mid-1970s. College spokesman Patrick Early said that engineering student Andrew J. Stack 3d collected nearly 60 credits from 1975 to 1977 but left without getting a degree.

Early said that Stack's last address on file was in Corona, Calif., in 1999. His month and year of birth match other records for Joseph Stack, believed to be the pilot in yesterday's crash.

A spokeswoman for the Milton Hershey School in Hershey said that Andrew Joseph Stack 3d graduated from the school in 1974.

An antigovernment message on a Web site linked to Stack describes his life as a cash-strapped college student living in Harrisburg in the 1970s.

In the long, rambling, self-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 other after he failed to report the income of his wife, Sheryl.

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 "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 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," 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, six miles from the crash site, caved in the roof and blew out the windows.

Neighbor Elbert Hutchins said the house caught fire about 9:15 a.m. local time. He said a woman and her teenage daughter drove up to the house before firefighters arrived.

"They both were very, very distraught," said Hutchins. " 'That's our house!' they cried. 'That's our house!' "

Red Cross spokeswoman Marty McKellips said the agency was assisting two people who live in the house. McKellips said the family would "give information and answer questions" today.