Small plane crashes into Austin office
By JIM VERTUNO, Associated Press Writer Jim Vertuno, Associated Press Writer –
27 mins agoAUSTIN, Texas – A software engineer furious with the Internal Revenue Service plowed his small plane into an office building housing nearly 200 federal tax employees on Thursday, officials said, setting off a raging fire that sent workers fleeing as thick plumes of black smoke poured into the air.
A U.S. law official identified the pilot as Joseph Stack and said investigators were looking at an anti-government message on the Web linked to him. The Web site outlines problems with the IRS and says violence "is the only answer."
Federal law enforcement officials have said they were investigating whether the pilot, who is presumed to have died in the crash, slammed into the Austin building on purpose in an effort to blow up IRS offices. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.
"Violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer," the long note on Stack's Web site reads, citing past problems with the tax-collecting agency.
"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," the note, dated Thursday, reads.
At least one person who worked in the building was unaccounted for and two people were hospitalized, said Austin Fire Department Division Chief Dawn Clopton. She did not have any information about the pilot. About 190 IRS employees work in the building, and IRS spokesman Richard C. Sanford the agency is trying to account for all of its workers.
After the low-flying plane crashed into the building, flames shot out, windows exploded and workers scrambled to safety. Thick smoke billowed out of the second and third stories hours later as fire crews battled the blaze.
"It felt like a bomb blew off," said Peggy Walker, an IRS revenue officer who was sitting at her desk in the building when the plane crashed. "The ceiling caved in and windows blew in. We got up and ran."
In a neighborhood about six miles from the crash site, a home listed as belonging to Stack was on fire earlier Thursday. Two law enforcement officials said Stack had apparently set fire to his home before the suicidal plane flight.
Elbert Hutchins, who lives one house away from the house on a quiet, tree-lined middle class neighborhood, said the house caught fire about 9:15 a.m. He said a woman and her teenage daughter drove up to the house before firefighters arrived.
"They both were very, very distraught," said Hutchins, a retiree who said he didn't know the family well. "'That's our house!' they cried 'That's our house!' "
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford said the agency confirmed the plane took off from an airport in Georgetown, Texas, and the pilot didn't file a flight plan. Lunsford said initially the plane was identified as a Cirrus SR22 but later said it might be a Piper Cherokee.
Gerry Cullen, 66, was eating breakfast a restaurant across the street when the plane struck the building.
"The airplane hit and vanished in a fireball," said Cullen, a former flight instructor.
Matt Farney, 39, who was in the parking lot of a nearby Home Depot, said he saw a low-flying small plane near some apartments and the office building just before it crashed.
"I figured he was going to buzz the apartments or he was showing off," Farney said. "It was insane. ... It didn't look like he was out of control or anything."
Sitting at her desk in another building about a half-mile from the crash, Michelle Santibanez said she felt vibrations after the crash. She and her co-workers ran to the windows, where they saw a scene that reminded them of the 9/11 attacks, she said.
"It was the same kind of scenario with window panels falling out and desks falling out and paperwork flying," said Santibanez, an accountant.
National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson said an investigator from the board's Dallas office has been dispatched to the scene of the accident to start an investigation. The FAA and NTSB officials said they had no information on whether the crash was intentional. The White House also said President Barack Obama was briefed about the crash.
As a precaution, the Colorado-based North American Aerospace Defense Command launched two F-16 aircraft from Houston's Ellington Field, and is conducting an air patrol over the crash area.
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Associated Press writers April Castro and Jay Root in Austin; Devlin Barrett, Lolita C. Baldor and Joan Lowy in Washington, Melanie Coffee in Chicago and the AP News Research Center contributed to this report
Bill Clinton's spokesperson confirms he was rushed to a New York City hospital with chest pains
By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer Deepti Hajela, Associated Press Writer –
4 mins ago
NEW YORK – Former President Bill Clinton had two stents inserted in one of his heart arteries after being hospitalized with chest pains, an adviser said Thursday. Clinton, 63, "is in good spirits and will continue to focus on the work of his foundation and Haiti's relief and long-term recovery efforts," said adviser Douglas Band.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton left Washington and headed to New York to be with her husband, who underwent the procedure at New York Presbyterian Hospital.
Stents are tiny mesh scaffolds used to prop open an artery after it is unclogged in an angioplasty procedure. Doctors thread a tube through a blood vessel in the groin to a blocked artery, inflate a balloon to flatten the clog, and slide the stent into place.
That is a different treatment from what Clinton had in 2004, when clogged arteries first landed him in the hospital. He underwent quadruple bypass surgery because of four blocked arteries, some of which had squeezed almost completely shut.
AP – FILE - In this Dec. 2, 2008 file photo, former U.S. President Bill Clinton attends the Clinton Global …
Angioplasty, which usually includes placing stents, is one of the most common medical procedures done worldwide. More than half a million stents are placed each year in the United States.
With bypass or angioplasty, patients often need another procedure years down the road because arteries often reclog.
"It's not unexpected" for Clinton to need another procedure now, said Dr. Clyde Yancy, cardiologist at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas and president of the American Heart Association.
The sections of arteries and veins used to create detours around the original blockages tend to develop clogs five to 10 years after a bypass, he explained. New blockages also can develop in new areas.
"This kind of disease is progressive. It's not a one-time event, so it really points out the need for constant surveillance" and treating risk factors such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure, he said.
The former president has been working in recent weeks to help relief efforts in Haiti. Since leaving office, he has maintained a busy schedule working on humanitarian projects through his foundation.
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Associated Press Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione contributed to this report.
Commander of the U.S. Southern Command General Douglas Fraser (undated photo)
The U.S. military says it is working with the Haitian government to build a temporary medical facility for Haitian earthquake victims recovering from injuries.
The Commander of the U.S. Southern Command General Douglas Fraser said Thursday that the facility will have an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 beds and will dramatically improve the capacity of the medical care being provided.
He said the U.S. Navy hospital ship, the Comfort, is reaching its care limit as some injuries have required more treatment than anticipated. He said the new facility would give discharged patients the space and time they need to recover.
General Fraser said efforts to supply victims with food are also falling short in some cases. He said though the situation in Haiti is improving, troops are still finding places where more than two weeks after the January 12 quake, relief has not yet arrived.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says the situation remains "precarious" for hundreds of thousands of people. The head of the group's delegation in Haiti, Riccardo Conti, says people in the poorest areas of Port-au-Prince still have pressing needs for shelter, food, health care and sanitation.
On Wednesday, a French rescue team pulled a teenage girl alive from under the rubble in the capital, 15 days after the earthquake leveled much of the city.
The rescuers say they found the girl, severely dehydrated, in a pocket surrounded by concrete. It was not clear whether she became trapped during the initial earthquake or an aftershock.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday that the U.N. mission in Haiti and U.N. agencies are working around the clock to help Haitians affected by the quake, which left an estimated 200,000 people dead.
He said 150 health centers and hospitals have been set up and are running in Port-au-Prince.
However, the secretary-general voiced the need for tents and shelter for the estimated one million Haitians left homeless following the 7.0-magnitude quake. He also appealed for support of a recently announced "cash-for-work" program aimed at putting more than 200,000 Haitians to work to rebuild their country.
Officials estimate it will take at least 10 years to rebuild Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country.
Source: VOA News
Posted by Philip Carter
Jan 23, 2010
