Suicide pilot crashes plane into tax offices

[Velius]

Another general aviation plane crashed today (Feb 18)- this time into an Austin office building.

Small Plane Crashes Into Austin, Texas, Office Building - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News - FOXNews.com.

It happened just recently, so the story is still developing.

The building lies along a flight path, so authorities are saying this is an accident.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

It was an IRS building

 

[DBII]

I just heard that a plane was flown into an IRS building in Austin, Texas.

DBII

 

[beaupower32]

Yep, after he set his own house on fire. Seems a little disgruntled to me lol. But in all seriousness, this is pretty sad.

 

[DBII]

He left a note. I found these on ABC13 website.

The note reads, in part:

""In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lives and their self-serving laws. I know I'm hardly the first one to decide I've had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country and it isn't limited to the blacks and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless efforts before me and there will surely be many after, but I also know that by adding my body to the count, I will ensure nothing will change."

"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."

One person is missing and 2 in the hospital. The firefighters are hard at work. The guy had moved his business from California to Tx and it must not have worked out very well.

DBII

 

[gumbyk]

It was more than a note, it was a six-page rant. Severely disgruntled with teh IRS, and it reads like the writings of someone with more than a touch of paranoia.
I came across it, but am of two minds whether or not to post the link here.

 

[Torch]

I read it, does not sound like paranoia to me, he states alot of things that many us think about often including me, I'm being audited by the IRS to the tune of owing 14k from 06, I have all the legit paperwork to fight it but its still a huge stress point in my life. I'm no where near the mental status of that guy but when you add this,the economy, rising cost of living, not being sure if you will have a job in the near future, health issues,increasing taxes etc it does not surprise me that people snap. I'm not saying he did the right thing especially if he hurt someone else but I can see more people doing things like this in the future.

 

[RabidAlien]

Yeah, I skimmed over his thesis, and have to say that he presented his arguments in a clear and concise manner, using his own personal experiences to flesh it out (lot of flesh there, too). I will never agree that he did the right thing, there are almost always other alternatives to taking your own/someone else's lives (not talking about the war on terrorism here, please don't misconstrue my statement!), but a part of me can understand the frustration he's going through. I've owed the IRS for the first time in my life these last two years, 2008 and 2009. And the economy isn't getting any better.

Still...wish he could've taken out the entire IRS database and, in a freak series of circumstances, all hard-copy data backups, tax-law books, and upper-level IRS employees. That would've been nice.

 

[gumbyk]

Fair enough, you guys have a whole lot more knowledge of the IRS and the tax system up there than I will ever have.

 

[Colin1]

Wow
has it been disclosed what pushed him over the edge yet, or was it the repeated loss of his retirement savings?

By Nick Allen
in Los Angeles

The Daily Telegraph 19 February 2010

A pilot committed suicide by flying his light aircraft into a tax office in Texas yesterday. Joseph Stack, 53, left a six-page suicide note in which he railed against the IRS, the US federal tax agency.

"I am finally ready to end this insanity" he wrote. "Well, Mr Big Brother IRS man, let's try something different. Take my pound of flesh and sleep well. There was a storm raging inside of me. Desperate times call for desperate measures. We are brainwashed into believing there is freedom in this land."

In his suicide manifesto, which he posted on his own website, Stack also railed against Wall Street bankers, the Roman Catholic Church, President George W Bush and the health care system. The software engineer detailed how he had spent $5,000 and 1,000 hours of his time writing to senators and congressmen about taxes and how he twice lost his retirement savings.

Stack crashed the four-seater Piper Cherokee into a seven-storey building housing 199 IRS employees in the state capital, Austin. It created a huge fireball and at least two people in the building were injured, with one unaccounted for.

NORAD scrambled two F-16 jets from Houston amid fears of a terrorist attack. The US Department of Homeland Security said later they believed there was "no nexus to terrorist activity". Stack set fire to his house in Austin before boarding the aircraft at the city's Georgetown airport.

Early reports suggested that Stack's wife was inside the house, but she was later said to be unharmed. Witnesses described how Stack flew low near power lines before heading over a wall and diving into the tax office. The impact punched a wide hole in the building, blew out dozens of windows and engulfed it in thick, black smoke and flames.

Peggy Walker, an IRS revenue officer who was sitting at her desk, said "It felt like a bomb. The ceiling caved in and windows blew in. We got up and ran".

Matt Farney, who was in a nearby car park, said, "I figured he was going to buzz some apartments or he was showing off. It was surreal. It was insane, it didn't look like he was out of control or anything".

The scale of the fireball led to speculation that the plane may have had explosive material other than fuel on board.

 

[Trebor]

people have gone nuts. that's all i'm saying

 

[vikingBerserker]

Ain't that the truth.

 

[Lucky13]

....and still IRS and similar in other countries don't take notice to improve life, for their fellow human beings.

 

[Airframes]

He'll now get a tax bill, payable by his survivors, for the damage, and the cost of recovery of his remains and burial/disposal of same.

 

[proton45]

He'll now get a tax bill, payable by his survivors, for the damage, and the cost of recovery of his remains and burial/disposal of same.

LOL

That reminds me of the movie "Brazil"...

 

[Loiner]

I know we all find tax a pain and frustration, even feeling like your being robbed at times with your hard earned cash being taken off you and handed out to hopeless loosers and other non deserving causes, but I can't understand how someone can get that wound up about it to do something like that; tax just one of those things in life that you have to put up with.

I also have no respect for people's views who take them out on inocent people, ie. the workers in the office building in Austin, they are just innocent people doing a job. People with such strong views should address their issues with the appropriate country's leaders.