Austin plane crash: Pilot Joe Stack appears to target IRS in chilling online suicide note | Austin Plane Crash on Office Building

A demented Texas pilot crashed his small plane into an Austin office building after torching his house and posting a bitter Internet rant against the IRS and corporate "thugs."

The black glass Echelon Building in the state capital housed a 200-strong IRS office.

"Nothing changes unless there is a body count," software engineer Andrew Joseph Stack, 53, wrote in a rambling final manifesto blasting corporations, the Catholic Church and bailouts for Wall Street.
"Violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer," he declared. "I know I'm hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand.

"Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let's try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well."
It was signed "Joe Stack (1956-2010)."

Before it was determined the attack was not foreign terrorism, at least two Texas Air National Guard F-16 fighter jets were scrambled in Houston and President Obama was briefed.

Remarkably, even though the plane hit a seven-story office building on a workday just before 10 a.m., sparking a 50-foot fireball and an inferno that raged uncontrolled for three hours, only two people were hurt.

One IRS employee was unaccounted for, but the only confirmed fatality was Stack himself.

"It's phenomenal that no one lost their lives," said Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell. "It's almost incredible."

Late Thursday, a body was pulled from the building, but it was not immediately clear if it was Stack's or the missing federal worker.

Stack, who moved to Austin from Northern California in 2004, complained that he could not make a living with his software company, Embedded Arts.

He detailed several complex schemes to get out of paying taxes, blaming the government for the failure of his subterfuges, not himself.

Described by shocked pals as mild-mannered and laid-back, Stack played bass in a band that billed itself as "gritty Texan bar-room country."

His large, comfortable house in leafy North Austin was set ablaze about 8 a.m. by what witnesses described as an explosion.

Witnesses told KXAN-TV they saw a neighbor rescue Stack's wife of two years - classical pianist Sheryl Housh Stack, a teaching assistant at the University of Texas - and her 12-year-old daughter, Margaux.

Stack then went to a nearby airfield, got into his four-seat, single-engine Piper Cherokee, flew 16 minutes and then dove into the Echelon Building.

Witnesses said the plane came in low, skimming a set of power lines, and was roaring at full throttle on impact into the second floor.

In the initial fire, there were several acts of bravery.

A glass installer, Robin Dehaven, who was driving by with a long ladder, actually climbed up into the flaming building's second floor to help escort trapped people down to safety.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) said the incident "exposed a weakness we've seen since 9/11 - that airplanes can fly into buildings." He marveled that even though the Piper Cherokee is one of the smallest private planes, "It nearly brought down the entire building."



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