Small Plane Crashes into Building in Austin, TX

Oh boy. The guy has a six-page rant up on his website about the IRS.

This morning he posted something to the effect of “Let’s try something different. Take my pound of flesh and sleep well.”

oooooof.

From the website:

Translation: I tried to game the tax codes for my own benefit, took the advice of other attempted tax-dodgers, and got caught.

FAA officials now say it was a Piper Cherokee PA-28.

As an aside: Those are powered by Lycoming O-360 engines, some variants of which were partly designed by my father when he worked at Textron Lycoming.

Latest news from the local daily, the Austin American-Statesman. No deaths reported yet.

I’ve e-mailed my sister, but I haven’t heard back yet.

Does anyone know if the building that was crashed into is

9606 North Mopac Expressway

That map I gave in my first post was wrong, it was their San Antonio office

They are saying on the news that it is building 2.

Well, it appears there is some confusion over the exact type of airplane, whether or not it was stolen, and various other details… so lets all keep in mind that when more facts come out our viewpoints may need adjusting.

Although that manifesto does give a motive…

I’m going to nitpick that slightly - it’s a pretty sure bet Mr. Joe Stack did not survive the impact. So, at least one death.

Really, I’m getting a Tim McVeigh/Murrah Federal Building vibe off this story, anyone else?

Really? CNN has been reporting it’s Echelon Bldg #3.

They’re also having trouble accounting for one person. Doesn’t mean he/she’s dead, but it’s not a good sign.

  1. Guy’s from Texas.

  2. Guy has a hatred of the Catholic Church.

  3. Guy tries to re-interpret the tax code to his advantage.

I’m getting a profile of the guy, that matches a lot of what I read in a gun forum I lurk at.

That’s a chilling rant, and it’s especially nasty that he signs it with his death year.

But there’s something else going on, because why try to take your family with you if you’re mad at the IRS?

No, it depends on what the rest of the numbers are. If it’s a 140 then it’s an 0-320. Pa-28 represents a series of aircraft including an Arrow.

The FAA said it was a PA-28 Cherokee so that should be a Cherokee 140 which is a 4 seat fixed gear, fixed prop plane with an 0-320 engine of 150/160 hp.

If he was strait and level then the max speed would have been around 115 knots and if he was diving then closer to 140/150 knots although if it was a one-way trip I suppose breaking VNE doesn’t matter.

I work about a mile from the building. The street address is 9420 Research BLVD. If the address you posted is the address for your sisters building, she should be fine, Palo Verde.

Sounds like he’s bankrupt. Sadly it’s not extremely uncommon for men to kill their families before killing themselves if they’ve lost their jobs/savings, etc., and are at the “screw the world/my boss/my employer/the government” mode of thinking. Link to article about “family annihilators”, called “Why Ordinary People Murder Their Families.”

Don’t annoy any of them.

I just got this message from my sister:

So she’s OK then. Great news!

Then, after I was caught, I pretended that I was doing it as a political protest.

And on further review (sorry 'bout that, Dad), some of the engines for the PA-28 weren’t even built by Lycoming. Hopefully by tomorrow night when I see him the news agencies will have their story straight about which plane it was.