A software engineer furious with the US tax agency launched a suicide attack on Thursday by crashing his small plane into an office building containing nearly 200 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees, setting off a raging fire that sent workers running for their lives.
Emergency crews recovered two bodies from the wreckage. The pilot was presumed dead and one worker in the building was reported missing.
Austin Fire Department Battalion Chief Palmer Buck declined to discuss the identities of those found, but said on Thursday night that authorities had “accounted for everybody.”
The FBI tentatively identified the pilot as Joseph Stack III, 53. Law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still ongoing, said that before taking off, Stack apparently set fire to his house and posted a long anti-government diatribe on the Web. It was dated on 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 tax protest movement has a long history in the US and was a strong component of anti-government sentiments that surged during the 1990s. Anti-tax protesters typically believe that they do not have to pay income taxes. Some have been convicted in recent years for targeting IRS officials for harassment and even murder.
The pilot took off in a four-seat, single engine Piper PA-28 from an airport in Georgetown, about 48km 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 10am with a thunderous explosion that instantly stirred memories of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Flames shot from the building, windows exploded, a huge pillar of black smoke rose over the city and terrified workers rushed to get out.
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 US President Barack Obama was briefed.
At least 13 people were injured, with two reported in critical condition. About 190 IRS employees work in the building.
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