Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Plane Hits Building in Austin, Texas;
Aired February 18, 2010 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: We continue our breaking news here of a plane crash in Austin. Let me tell you what we know.
You are looking at what we believe to be damage from a single- engine Piper Cherokee PA-28 which was flown, according to federal officials, deliberately into a building which houses the offices of the IRS in Austin, Texas. Federal officials have identified the pilot as Joseph Andrew Stack. He also owned the plane, and they say he set his house on fire earlier in the day, his Austin home on fire, then crashed the Piper Cherokee PA-28 plane into a seven-story building in Austin, Texas, northwest of the center of Austin, Texas.
Get this -- a six-page message on a Web site registered to Stack appears to be a suicide note. The message says, "If you're reading this, you're no doubt asking yourself, why did this have to happen?" I'm quoting now. "The simple truth is that it's complicated and has been coming for a long time."
The writer then rails against the government and, in particular, the Internal Revenue Service, and he closes the letter with the words, "Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS Man, let's try something different. Take my pound of flesh and sleep well."
The building into which the airplane crashed includes a IRS center. It has 190 employees.
We have heard from the local fire and police officials just moments ago they did not confirm those details. They did say that two people are injured, one is unaccounted for, but only three of the seven stories in the building have actually been searched because the fire is still burning in some of those places.
They also said that the plane was not stolen, contrary to earlier reports, and, in fact, it is registered Joseph Andrew Joseph Stack, who calls himself Joe Stack.
Let me show you where this happened. It happened near a highway, the Mopac Expressway, which is what you're looking at on the right side of your screen. It's in the northwest part of Austin, Texas, by Research Boulevard. The building is on the 9400 block of Research Boulevard by the Mopac Expressway.
It is next door to Austin's FBI headquarters, which gave some concern -- it gave some credence to earlier concern of whether this was a terrorist attack. But, in fact, the building itself houses IRS offices.
That's the building. We've got the bull's eye on it right now.
The plane, according to eyewitnesses, flew into the building at what appeared to be normal speed, but was flying much lower than it otherwise should have been flying in a populated area. That building can't be more than 100 feet high, probably somewhere between 70 and 100 feet high. That plane, 15 miles from the airport, shouldn't have been flying anywhere near that altitude.
We do also know that that plane was likely refueled at Georgetown Airport in Austin, about 15 miles out from where that building is. It had a 50-gallon tank in it. It was likely full. That plane has a range of about 660 miles.
We have plenty of accounts of this and iReports. You can see on the right of your screen, that looks like amateur video. We also know from NORAD AND NORTHCOM that F-16 fighter jets were scrambled as a precaution immediately after the crash, but officials from the Department of Homeland Security have responded that they don't believe there is any terrorist connection.
As I said, two people have been taken to the hospital, which is remarkable given the extent of the damage to that building. One person is officially unaccounted for, but firefighters say they will continue their search of the building.
The plane apparently went in at lower levels, somewhere between the first and second story. And as you can see, that smoke is billowing up to the higher levels of the building. Authorities say they have not fully searched that yet.
Let's go to Jeanne Meserve, our homeland security correspondent, who is in D.C. She has been following this very closely, in touch with her contacts.
Jeanne, what do you know?
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ali, we do know that President Obama was briefed on this situation by his counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, although the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and others say they see no indication at this time that there is any terrorist nexus here.
Federal officials have identified the individual involved as Joseph Andrew Stack. We are told that he was the owner of a house in the Austin area which was set on fire earlier today, according the a federal law enforcement official. He appears to have been the one who set that fire before he took off in this plane, which appears to have been owned by him, a Piper aircraft.
We asked this official, was this a suicide? The official responded, "It looks like it."
As you mentioned, this building houses 190 IRS employees. The IRS says they are still working to account for all of the employees in that building.
It calls to mind a bit, Ali, an incident back in 2002, when a young man flew an aircraft into an office building in Tampa, Florida. I don't know if you remember that one. In the end, that was determined to have been a suicide -- Ali.
VELSHI: All right, Jeanne. We'll continue to stay on this, and you will continue to find out exactly what you know, what more we're learning.
But it does seem that, at this point, if Homeland Security and other federal officials are feeling that this wasn't terrorism, they are going to hand this over to not only local officials, but the NTSB, for an investigation.
Earlier, we spoke to an NTSB specialist who told us how that investigation would be conducted. But the bottom line is, if this plane did take off from that airport, full of fuel, and deliberately intended to target that building and flew it into that building, it is unclear what could change to prevent that from happening in the first place. We are seeing a lot of reports about how a flight plan was not filed for that plane. We don't know that for sure yet, and I don't know if we know that for sure, but the bottom line is a flight plan is not required for most general aviation flights.
On the left of your screen you are looking at the Piper PA-28. Not the particular one that crashed into that building, but that is the model of plane.
It's a single-engine plane with a propeller in the front, and holding about 50 gallons of gasoline in either -- in both of those wings, the combination of both wings, which would be similar to a large SUV. But you do see on the right of your screen the amount of damage done to a seven-story building.
Let's go to Tom Fuentes. He's in our D.C. bureau. He is formerly of the FBI. And, in fact, earlier we thought that this might have been targeting the FBI building, but it hasn't been.
Tom, you're looking at the situation. Jeanne was just telling us federal authorities do not believe this to be terrorist-related. So now what do you make of it? What do you think?
TOM FUENTES, FMR. FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF FBI'S OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS: Well, that's true, Ali. They don't believe it at this time, but still, the JTTF officers and agents in Austin will be thoroughly investigating just to make absolutely sure, although all the indications are that it's someone that had mental problems and deliberately wanted to end his life and possibly kill others in the process by flying that aircraft into that building.
VELSHI: Tom, so, at this point, it may not be terrorism, but does that get the FBI out of the investigation after they have done whatever they do to make sure that there is nothing terrorist- connected? In other words, is this a local crime at this point? FUENTES: Well, it will be a local crime. And also, the NTSB will be involved at the federal level. What gets the FBI involved at this point is if the Austin police are requesting assistance for lead coverage outside of their jurisdiction, outside of the state or overseas. So, in that situation, if they trying to obtain financial records or track down other information about his business dealings, and other business issues such as that, they would ask for the FBI to assist, but the FBI will not be the lead agency.
VELSHI: Right.
FUENTES: Once the aspect of terrorism is eliminated, then the Austin police will be in charge. They are in charge.
VELSHI: He ends his -- again, I say he ends his. What we know is that the federal officials tell us this is Joseph Andrew Stack who flew the plane into the building. They said the plane is owned by him, they said his house has been set on fire.
And now they say that he has left this suicide note on this Web site which ends with the words, "Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS Man, let's try something different. Take my pound of flesh and sleep well."
Does fact that he is maybe targeting the IRS and then have flown this plane into a building that houses the local offices of the IRS, does that make it a federal crime?
FUENTES: Yes, that absolutely does make it a federal crime, and the FBI would be the lead agency in the attempted murder of federal officials, IRS officials, in this case. But in this situation, if it's pretty clear that he did it, he did it on his own, and now he's dead, then the FBI will be assisting with Austin police. Because, you know, it's mainly going to be within their jurisdiction. But yes, the FBI would have jurisdiction in the attempted murder of federal investigators.
VELSHI: Tom, a whole bunch of people who are following this and watching it -- and we have been getting people on Twitter and Facebook and e-mails -- on some levels are breathing a sigh of relief that this isn't a terrorist attack. I mean, there's no way on a bright sunny day to watch an airplane with no weather conditions go into a building, and that building catch fire, to not think back to 2001 and not think, oh, my God, what is happening?
Now, so there are a whole bunch of people who are relieved that it does not appear to be a terrorist attempt. Should we be relieved that somebody flew a plane into a building or a building holding federal offices?
FUENTES: In that situation, you're always going to be wondering what could have been worse. You know, in this situation, a mentally disturbed individual, OK, he was qualified and able to fly that aircraft. What if he were a commercial airline pilot with the same mental problems and same personal issues in his unprofessional life?
This is just a danger factor that you have. We have people who are flying airplanes, driving tanker trucks, piloting boats in our harbors. There's any number of threats or vulnerabilities that you would have in this situation if someone loses their mind and decides to commit an act like this.
VELSHI: Are we supposed to be able to know if somebody puts something like this on their Web site? Is there something out there that tracks that?
We spend a lot of time and energy tracking terrorism stuff, so I would assume that if somebody put on their Web site something that sounded like terrorism. But if people are mad at the IRS -- and I get an impression there might be a bunch of people mad at the IRS for any given reason because they might think that they're taking too much of their hard-earned money, and we're not making any judgments on that. But my point is, is there any mechanism out there to know that there are people who are apparently making threats against the IRS? And, by the way, his letter, his suicide note seems to make threats against or imply anger toward a lot of people.
FUENTES: Well, I heard Rick Sanchez read excerpts from it, and at the end talk about the pound of flesh. But, you know, the threats are very unspecific. So, you know, you could read that letter and think that he's going to file a lawsuit against the IRS. It doesn't indicate that he's going to attack their office and attempt to kill members of the IRS.
VELSHI: So absent any other information --
(CROSSTALK)
FUENTES: So a long message like that, it doesn't -- at least from what I heard about it, it didn't seem like there were very specific threats.
VELSHI: Yes. So, absent -- and I guess that's my point. To a law enforcement person, if you read the line, absent of any other information, "Well, My Big Brother IRS Man, let's try something different. Take my pound of flesh and sleep well." That does not meet the standard of a specific, credible threat?
FUENTES: No, it doesn't. It doesn't.
And I imagine there's thousands of letters or e-mails or posted messages that are just like that. An agency like the IRS is going to have many people that are upset with how they do business. And in this case, it could be others besides IRS -- business associates, people that he applied for a job with and didn't get hired.
There's any number of enemies in his mind, but the ability to read his mind as to, OK, he is very upset, he's angry beyond control, but how is that going to manifest itself? He could have driven his car into a tree and ended his life that way and only hurt himself. In this case, he decides to fly a plane into the office building housing IRS.
But again, there's nothing in that message. And I don't know who that message was directed. "To Whom it May Concern?" Was it to a friend or associate, someone who may know him and know that he has mental problems and access to an aircraft and a pilot's license, the knowledge to fly that airplane? So, there's a number of aspects that need to be looked at and will be continued to look at.
VELSHI: Tom Fuentes, thanks for joining us with that perspective.
Tom Fuentes, formerly with the FBI.
Let's go in and take a listen to our affiliate covering Texas Governor Rick Perry's comments on this.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
GOV. RICK PERRY (R), TEXAS: You always have some exposure in a free society, so, you know, the balance is finding how to protect the people and also protect their freedoms and liberties, whether it's allowing ease of access into the state capitol. I hope we don't turn our capitol into DFW or Bush International Airport from the standpoint of security, that Texans still and visitors still have freedom to come and go and don't feel like they are being, you know, inappropriately hassled. But the other side of that is, is we have people's safety, and so it is always a battle between anarchy and tyranny, and always has been.
Thank you, all.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks, Governor.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Governor.
VELSHI: That's Texas Governor Rick Perry. We're just getting on the end of his statement there.
We are going to take a quick break, continue our coverage of the plane that has gone into a building. The fire has not been fully extinguished at that building yet. The building remains to be searched. Three of the seven floors have been searched.
We've got a lot more information on the pilot, on his motivations, for doing this, and on the recovery of those people who are injured. And at least one person unaccounted for in that building in Austin, Texas.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. Let me bring you up to speed on what's going on.
On the right, you are looking at pictures of a building in northwest Austin, Texas, which housed 190 employees of the IRS. This is a building that had a plane fly into it at 11:00 a.m. Eastern today, 10:00 a.m. Central Time. The plane on your left is the same model of that plane, a Piper Cherokee PA-28, which took off from Georgetown Airport in Austin, Texas, about 15 miles away, apparently with full tanks of gas. That airport has been closed down for the investigation.
This building is -- we haven't got accurate figures, but it's seven stories, which means it's somewhere between 70, 80, maybe 90 feet tall. And a plane went into the lower levels of it, between the first and third floors, as you can see from the fire, a seven-story building. There's no reason for a plane to have been flying at that level. We have eyewitnesses who said that there was no erratic flying and that the plane was down at that level without its landing gear down, although that does look like it may have fixed landing gear, so I'm going to have to get a little more information on that.
Bottom line is that the federal officials have identified the pilot of that plane as Joseph Stack. He is the owner of that plane.
Joseph Stack, according to federal officials, also set his home on fire earlier today in Austin, Texas, and now we have -- and I think we've got pictures there of the house. I can't tell what that is. That's the picture of the house that was burning earlier today in Austin, Texas.
Then we found an Internet site which had what appears to be a suicide note, a six-page note, written by Joseph Stack on a Web site that is registered to Joe Stack. He calls himself Joe Stack.
We're just going through it and finding out what he is saying, but it's fair to say that he was angry. He starts by saying, "The writing process started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn't enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken."
A couple of paragraphs later, he says, "In my lifetime, I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician who cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say."
Then he goes on to about the tax system. He speaks about that. He speaks about how it cost him $40,000 plus 10 years of his life and "set my retirement plans back to zero."
He mentions Arthur Andersen, the old accounting firm, now defunct after the failure of Enron and the finding initially that they had something to do with that. That was subsequently turned around.
He just goes on about a lot of things.
He talks about the Catholic Church. He says, "Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle to try and build some momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up some speed. Then came..." And he is speaking in past tense. "Then came the dot-com bust and the 9/11 nightmares." He continues on for several pages. And then, in his final paragraph of the letter, he writes, "Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS Man, let's try something different. Take my pound of flesh and sleep well."
Joseph Stack studied engineering in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In the early '80s, he got involved in some tax code discussions and groups. He worked as a contract software engineer.
He then said in 1987, he spent $5,000 of what he calls pocket change and at least 1,000 hours of his time writing to senators, congressmen and governors about the tax codes. He was living in southern California in the '90s, when he says the L.A. depression hit.
He lost his retirement savings for the second time. He moved then from California to Austin.
Remember, he was a software engineer, and Austin was a good center for software developers and engineers. But he couldn't find work.
And he is apparently divorced once, remarried, and according to the letter -- it's hard to sort of follow timelines in this letter, because it sort of goes all over the place, but apparently he's remarried. And according to Austin media -- this is not in his letter, but according to some Austin media reports, he has a daughter.
We have no more information on his family or their whereabouts, or who lived at that home that was on fire. He does say though at one point in his letter -- and this is page five -- he says, "But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano which I had no idea how to handle. After considerable thought, I decided it would be irresponsible not to get professional help. That was a very big mistake."
Let's go to Dr. Chris Ziebell on the phone. He is at the Seton Medical Center in Austin, Texas.
Tell us -- we understand that some patients have been transported to your medical center, the Seton Medical Center.
DR. CHRISTOPHER ZIEBELL, UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER BRACKENRIDGE: Yes, that's correct. It's actually University Medical Center Brackenridge.
VELSHI: OK.
Tell us what you know. What condition have these people come in on and what are they suffering from?
ZIEBELL: We had two victims come in from this incident. One suffered second-degree burns over about 25 percent of his body. He was stabilized here and then transferred to the burn center at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. The second victim suffered from smoke inhalation, and was stabilized here at University Medical Center Brackenridge, and apparently was just discharged moments ago.
VELSHI: Tell me what happened earlier today, 10:00 Central Time, after reports of this crash came in. What typically happens? Were you alerted by authorities that there's a big development and you need to be ready to accept patients?
ZIEBELL: I actually was alerted by an emergency physician who witnessed the plane hitting the building, who called me and said, "You need to get your guys ready." And so we had lead time that started even before EMS was dispatched.
VELSHI: That was, Doctor, a colleague of yours?
ZIEBELL: Yes.
VELSHI: Do you know who that is? Can you tell us?
ZIEBELL: Yes. His name is Dr. Todd Nash (ph).
VELSHI: Dr. Todd Nash (ph). All right. Excellent. Good to know.
All right. So you were alerted. Were you surprised having seen the scale of this thing that you got two patients?
ZIEBELL: Yes. We've been calling all around the city to try to find out if there were any injured taken anywhere else, and it really does appear that there were only two people who needed medical care today.
VELSHI: And that seems to mesh with what the spokesperson for the fire department and what the mayor told us.
I've got to say -- and I don't know if you watched any of this coverage. We're running it live on the air all the time. That does seem somewhat phenomenal, that that degree of damage, a building with that much smoke and fire, and you have two patients.
ZIEBELL: The victim that I spoke to talked at length about how impressed he was with the rapid response of EMS. They are just three or four blocks from a fire station, and, of course, this was a witnessed event in broad daylight, so everybody was able to be dispatched pretty quickly. And the victim that I spoke with said that was the thing that he really dwelled on, is that before he was even oriented to what was going on, there were officials in the building ushering him out.
VELSHI: All right.
Have you been given a stand down yet in terms of receiving new patients?
ZIEBELL: We have, yes. We are told that the EMS system has returned to normal operations and has left the scene, and that we are not to expect any more casualties from today.
VELSHI: All right.
For people who are just joining us, or don't know what's happened here, you are looking at pictures of a building on the 9400 block of Research Boulevard in Austin, Texas. That's an intersection of Research Boulevard and the Mopac Freeway.
Let's just listen in to our local affiliate. A reporter is at the house of Joseph Stack, which we understand he set fire to earlier.
Let's listen in for a moment.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
STEVE ALBERTS, KVUE REPORTER: -- that he was being audited by the IRS. Many people were saying that the family were secluded in the home. They moved in about two years ago. They didn't really know them.
I have one person who was a witness. Her name is Shannon Houston.
And Shannon, you woke up to the flames this morning, and then tell me what you saw.
SHANNON HOUSTON, WITNESS: When I walked out of the house, I saw, of course, the flames and the smoke. And a little while later, I saw a little girl crying. She was crying really hard, and she ran into my neighbor's house.
And it appeared to be her mother. It was an older woman. She ran in behind her.
Yes. So, I mean, it's just devastating. And like you said, I can't believe that it's in my neighborhood, like, directly across the street from me. It is just mind-boggling.
ALBERTS: Well, thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Shannon.
HOUSTON: You're welcome.
ALBERTS: We appreciate it. And we'll check back with you a little later.
That has kind of been the sentiment of all of the neighbors here, a little bit of shock, a little bit of dismay, not really understanding why this happened. Only a good friend who didn't want to go on camera told me that Joe was a great guy. He referred to him as "Joe Stack," Joseph Andrew Stack. He referred to him as "Joe" and said he was a great guy who would kind of give you anything that you needed.
Another neighbor who also didn't want to go on camera told me that the family might have been having some marital problems. So we are working that angle as well to find out if that in fact is true.
Now, I did get a statement from the family, and I just want to read it to you at this time.
It says, "The family has no comment at this time. They would like no media contact. The family will contact the media tomorrow to give information and answer questions."
So, we don't expect to hear from the relatives today, and hopefully they will speak to us tomorrow and shed some light on exactly what happened here.
Reporting live --
All right. That was Steve Alberts reporting live from KVUE, our affiliate in Austin, Texas, from the home of Joe Stack, Joseph Andrew Stack, the man identified as the pilot and owner of the plane that flew into the building.
He is reported to have a wife and a daughter. We don't have confirmation of the daughter, but Steve was just saying that the family has issued a statement saying they want no contact with the media today and they will be making a statement tomorrow. He does appear to have lived in that home with his family, according to the reports that we just got moments ago.
Now, the building that he flew the plane into is a building that houses IRS offices, and we are trying to confirm exactly what happened at those offices, or what you did there. But there are some reports that that's where you would go if you were being audited, or you needed to get to an appointment. We do understand that Joseph Stack had dealings with the IRS, and his letter ends with what could be perceived to be a threat against the IRS, although a former FBI official says that it is unspecific to the point that it may not have been regarded as a threat.
Let's take a break. We'll continue our coverage of the building -- the plane that went into a building in Austin, Texas.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. We continue to follow this story that we have been on for several hours. Federal officials say a man may have intentionally crashed a small plane into a building in Austin, Texas. That is the building you are looking at. Those are earlier pictures of a remarkable fire burning after having a Piper Cherokee pa-28 single-engine aircraft apparently full of fuel having just been refueled at an airport 15 miles away fly right into the lower levels of a seven-story building. That building housed IRS offices, and some people are telling us that they are the offices that you would go into if you had have to have an audit.
Authorities have identified the pilot is identified as Joseph Andrew Stack, who allegedly set his house on fire beforehand. He left a suicide note, again, according to authorities, but we have the note, railing against the government and the IRS in particular.
Two people are hurt. We just spoke to the hospital where they were transported. One has been released; apparently, they are doing OK.
One person is missing. No deaths have been reported, although the Fire Department did say they have not been able to search the upper levels of that building. We do not have reports of people unaccounted for except for one. One person unaccounted for, not including the pilot of the plane.
Let's go to Washington, D.C. where our homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve has been following this all very. very closely right from the beginning. And let's just reset this for a moment, Jeanne. When this first happened, obviously, what people think about is a terrorist attack. Tell me how this has developed since you first learned of this.
MESERVE: Well, even from to get-go, I will tell you that the Department of Homeland Security was saying they did not see any nexus to terrorism.
But at the beginning, they were also saying they didn't see any nexus to criminality. They have taken that out of their statement. Apparently, because of all of this other information has come to light about Joseph Andrew Stack, specifically that there was a house that belonged to him that was set on fire before this occurred. According to a federal law enforcement official, it appears that he set that fire before he got in his Piper aircraft and flew into that building in Austin which houses the IRS.
When I asked the federal law enforcement official was this suicide, he said, it appears that way, calling to mind the 2002 incident in which a young man flew an airplane into an office building in Tampa, Florida; that was ruled a suicide.
About the IRS, we have spoken to them. All they will say at this point is that they had 190 employees at that building, and they are still trying to account for all of them.
The White House is saying that the president has been briefed on this situation by his counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, even though we have been told repeatedly, there does not appear to be any nexus whatsoever, Ali, to terrorism.
Back to you.
VELSHI: All right, Jeanne Meserve, excellent reporting on this all day.
And as always the case when things like this break, the circumstances change. So initially, the response that it was not terrorism did not -- sort of was not informed by the idea that there were a few things that were coming together. The fact that the house had been set on fire, that this was not a stolen plane, which may have been the first impression, but that this plane was actually registered to this man and it starts to come together. So it is a tough one, with a lot of moving parts.
But the building is not secured. There are questions about structural integrity, according to the mayor. That is -- the fire does not seem to be -- the smoke is not billowing out of it, but the search continues to make sure nobody is trapped in that building on the upper floors of the seven-story building on the 9400 block of Research Boulevard in Austin, Texas.
I want to just bring you up to date on other things we are working on in CNN. It is a story that we have been following for several hours, and let me bring you up to speed on this one first of all, in case you haven't been watching.
A federal official says a man apparently intentionally crashed a plane into a building in Austin, Texas. The IRS has an office inside with nearly 200 employees. Authorities have identified the pilot as Joseph Andrew Stack, who allegedly set his own house on fire, as Jeanne just told us before hand. Stack left an apparent suicide note on his website. We have got that, it is railing gains the government and the IRS in particular. Two people are hurt, one missing and nobody is reported dead.
President Obama is sending a clear message to Congress today, you are not doing enough to cut the national debt. Just hours ago, he formally set up a bipartisan commission to address the issue, to tackle the issue of national debt. Among the options, raising taxes and doing other things to revamp Medicare and Social Security.
In New York, former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik has been sentenced to four years in prison. Kerik has admitted filing false taxes, lying to the White House and other crimes. He was considered a hero after 9/11 and he was nominated for homeland security in 2004, but Kerik withdraw after allegations started to surface.
OK, we're going to take a quick break and continue with the news of the afternoon when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right, let's continue to recap the information that we have got.
On the right of the screen, you are looking at pictures from earlier on of a building in the northwest part of Austin, Texas. Police, firefighters and emergency crews have been working hard to extinguish the flames and rescue anyone who is in that building. Miraculously after a plane crashed into it and the flames started burning, two people were taken for treatment at a local medical center; one has been released. One person is unaccounted for at the moment.
And we are learning now that the pilot of the plane is dead. We believe that the pilot to be Joseph Andrew Stack, he is the owner of the plane, a Piper Cherokee PA-28 single-engine craft -- that is not the exact plane, that it is a picture of a similar plane -- that took off from Georgetown Airport, which is in Austin, about 15 miles away.
We are believing that it had full tank of gas which would have been 50 gallons of gas, enough to fly that plane about 650 miles. It only flew 15 miles and then right into the lower floors of a seven- story building, and it -- really at an altitude that a small plane would have had no business being in it, unless it were out of control. It went into the lower floors of this building, which houses near 200 employees of the IRS.
It does turn out that this person, Joseph Stack, Joe Stack as he called himself, left a note on a website registered to him which reads very much like a -- it is a six-page note which reads like a suicide note where he ends by saying, "Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS Man, let's try something different. Take my pound of flesh and sleep well."
Let's talk a little bit about the extensive damage that was done to that building, it almost seems incongruous with such a small plane. Bonnie Schneider joins me know, she's been looking into it.
Bonnie, we sort of have been going through this all day. First somebody said a Cessna, then it was a Cirrus plane, now authorities have confirmed that it is a Piper PA-28, very much like the one you are standing beside.
BONNIE SCHNEIDER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That's right. And the planes that you mentioned are very similar models to this one. And this one is not the exact plane that flew into the building, but it is a picture of the same sort soft model. And I'm going to open up the picture a little bit so you can see a close-up of what it looks like. Why don't we zoom in here?
This plane has four seats, though it could hold about six people, as you can see in the picture. But what we are looking at is the plane itself and the flight path as we take a look at Google Earth. We're going to start off with where the flight originated from. And what you're looking at here is the Georgetown Airport. The distance, as we kind of zoom it up here and fly down, you can see is not far from the crash site.
Let's zoom in here and you can take a look at what we're looking at. Basically, it's important to note that the distance is only 7.8 miles from downtown Austin, and we can show you that path as well. Now zooming into the crash site so close to the highway.
And incidentally, Ali, I took a look at the weather conditions at the time of the crash, and they were really calm. Visibility was at 10 miles, the temperature was in low 50s and it was perfectly clear. Winds at the time of the crash were light out of the south. We did see a lot of that smoke blowing onto the highway. As the hours continued, we did see those winds become more variable and pick up with a little intensity, but overall weather is not a factor here in terms of what is going on at the crash site.
VELSHI: All right, and you and I talked about this when this first happened, because when you are flying a small plane like that, unnaturally high winds could have an impact, but that wasn't -- we were trying to rule out weather as a factor in this plane going off course. And, of course, that is before we realized this note and there was house on fire. But it seemed like it was a calm day, so if that plane went into the building, that would lend credence to the theories that we've heard of some law enforcement officials and some pilots to say, if that plane went into that building, it is probably because somebody was trying to get it into building.
SCHNEIDER: And it's interesting, you mentioned high winds, most of the country actually dealing with high winds, especially in the northeast. So had this happened in a different part of the country today, we would have seen very strong winds. But particularly down in Texas, the weather has been calm and it will continue to be calm in the Austin area as we go into the evening hours.
VELSHI: All right, Bonnie Schneider. Thank you for that update and the information about that plane.
SCHNEIDER: Sure.
VELSHI: Let's go to Josh Levs who continues to follow the developments in the story. Josh, what have you got?
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ali, we have been taking a look at all sort of things we're getting online, especially from our iReporters all over the country, but particularly there in Austin. What's been happening is people in Austin have been sending photos out and then some people who know them are saying, get them to iReport, get them to iReport. So now iReport is getting pretty overwhelmed, which is great. We have a lot of pictures to show you.
Let's go to this, I have this computer behind me, you can take it through to GR-140 -- there you go. I want you to see this first, because these right here are photos from the home that was burning. See if we can get closer to it, too. This is from Sherry Stepen (ph) who was in that area in Austin. Now, as we know, as we have been telling you throughout the day, this home was set on fire and investigators do believe that it is the home of the same man who went and took the plane into the building.
So we have these, but take a look at how many more we have gotten. We have so many iReports coming to you today throughout Austin, all people with different angles, different views of this, Ali. So we are following all this interactively. I'll just flip through some of these photos, a lot of them incredibly powerful.
Earlier, a couple of hours ago, I spoke with an iReporter who told me as he was driving by this morning, people were stopping on the highway, getting out of their cars, literally crawling onto that grass that you're seeing right there, just to stare in shock of what was happening in their city.
We also heard from a woman who was in the building next door. She said it felt to her like an earthquake at the moment it was happening. The building next door shook. She then looked outside and was able to see this, these giant plumes of smoke coming up to the sky.
We're also following what's going on through interactive, we're following Facebook as well. We know that some people have taken an interest on what is said on Facebook. Unfortunately, Ali, it's part of the reality, anytime you hear of a horror like this, there are some people out there who create these twisted fan pages who are saying, look at this great guy fighting for liberty against the IRS, et cetera. Fortunately, it is just a handful of people, a few dozen that we are seeing who are joining anything like this.
And we definitely encourage anyone out there who has these pictures to go ahead to share them with us at iReport.com. Obviously, if you are in a safe place to do that, go ahead, share with us the images you are getting and the stories that go along with them. Because in each case, it is a powerful story about what it felt like, the sounds, the screams. Ali, you can imagine, what we have been hearing all day from our iReporters what it was like to be there at the time.
One of our iReporters literally saw the plane crash into the building. He saw the moment of impact. He said that everyone around him where he was screamed all at once. Obviously, it is unlike anything he had ever imagined.
And let me get back to these right here, just a few of what we have been getting throughout the day here as we keep sifting through the Internet. We're looking at Twitter, we're looking at Facebook, we're looking at all of the social media for the images that people are posting out there, Ali, as really Austin and the whole country tries to come to terms with what we saw today.
VELSHI: Well, those pictures are quite amazing, you see the amount of smoke and the flames earlier. And when you looked at that, I am not sure I would have naturally associated that with a small plane with 50 gallons of gas going into a building. It was a very big picture.
A lot of kudos for the emergency response teams in Austin for moving so quickly. A lot of iReporters commented on how quickly there was a response. There was a fire station very nearby, which I think was helpful.
LEVS: There was also a company that has an office inside of that building which had ladders, which is also just an incredible thing that worked out. We heard from a woman who is an eyewitness. She talked to us about a glass company that happens to be situated in the same area. She said they immediately went and took all of this equipment that they had and used it to get people out. The response by not just the authorities, but also the people who happened to be there really striking information.
And I will tell you, you talk about the size and the scope of the disaster at that building, when you hear from some of these iReporters about what they saw today, the moment that this happened, what you have to understand that you have this plane, and granted it is relatively small plane as these things go, but when it is going in with that kind of impact, you can understand, especially with the gasoline in there, you can understand why it would create devastation.
And certainly, to every person who has seen this, something just completely shocking. This is -- keep in mind it's morning time in Austin, people were driving to work. All of the sudden pull over to stop and stare at a building that is partly turned into a giant black plume of smoke, Ali.
VELSHI: Josh, we will continue to stay on the story. Thanks a lot.
Josh Levs is following this for us. We will continue to follow it. We do know that two people were taken to the hospital; one is released and one person is unaccounted for in the search of the building. Until we hear otherwise, we heard from the fire department had not completed the search. We have a lot of information on who Joseph Andrew Stack was, his angry letter -- apparent, his alleged angry letter that was posted on a website registered to him, and the fact that he set fire to his home, again, according to officials, before taking that plane into the building.
We will bring you a recap of everything we know on this story when we come back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Let's bring you up to speed on what we know right now.
There is a building, a plane went into it in Austin, Texas. It was a small plane, a single-engine Piper Cherokee PA-28 -- that is not the plane that went into it, but a plane of the same type. You can see those wings, that is where the fuel is in the plane, about 50 gallons of it.
The plane went into a building flying very low. Went into a building about 15 miles away from the airport apparently after having been refueled, and the building caught fire. We have reports of one person unaccounted for, we also know also that the pilot of the plane is dead. He has been identified by authorities as Joseph Andrew Stack. He owned the plane. He also apparently, his house had burned down today. He had apparently set fire to his house according to the authorities -- that is a picture of his house in Austin, Texas. And on a website registered to him is a long, six-page long note, somewhat rambling note, critical of all sorts of things.
Rick Sanchez was here and he's preparing for his show, but he went through the note. And it was quite clear of your reading of it, Rick, you cannot identify an ideology, you can identify that there's a man whose angry about a lot of things, but he does, he does -- this is, he does take particular aim at the IRS, and there are IRS employees who work in that building right there.
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And 199 of them to be exact. And interestingly enough, ever since we reported this suicide note, it's, you know, gone pretty much viral throughout Twitter and social media and everything. And it comes back to the chilling last line that you and I talked about a little while ago where he says, "Mr. Big Brother IRS Man, let's try something different. Take my pound of flesh and sleep well." It was almost as if with those words, Ali, he was essentially saying, this is the end for me and I have chosen to do this. Because, folks, as simple as it is to put this for anybody out there who may be thinking that this may have involved anything else, from very simple and plain reading of everything that took place today, including a real good look at the suicide note that he left behind, this man had a very serious grudge. This was a grudge. This was an act based on a stewing grudge that had been festering for decades.
VELSHI: And he details it quite -- I mean, you got to work through the letter, because it kind of moves around, but he details it. I want to give you a new piece of information that we have on this.
SANCHEZ: Yes, please.
VELSHI: From our affiliate KXAN in Austin, Texas, a 12-year-old girl and woman were apparently rescued from the burning house that you saw pictures of. We will show them again. A 12-year-old girl and a woman were apparently rescued from that fire this morning. The girl is believed to be his stepdaughter, Joseph Andrew Stack's stepdaughter. This apparently happened -- the reports we are getting -- about 9:15 a.m., I believe that's Central time, which would have been about 45 minutes before that plane went into the building. The house was owned by Joseph Stack, it is in the Scoffield (ph) Farms area of Austin.
SANCHEZ: Hold on. Hold on. Could you repeat that again? That he -- this is the original report that was not confirmed that there may have been someone in the house?
VELSHI: That is what we are hearing. That a 12-year-old girl and woman were rescued from that house after the fire started this morning. This gets stranger and stranger with each new report we get.
SANCHEZ: Well, and -- he had divorced his wife, had he not?
VELSHI: He was once divorced. Now it is hard from -- it is very, very hard to understand from reading that note, because --
SANCHEZ: Yes.
VELSHI: -- he talks in present tense of things that happened in the past. So he makes a reference to, "I am newly marry now and have boatloads of undocumented income." But I don't know whether he's talking about now, then, in the '90s -- it's hard to keep track of.
SANCHEZ: He pretty much leaves his personal or family life out of the note, by the way.
VELSHI: We know he was divorced once, we believe he's divorced once. We don't know what else -- whether he's remarried and who the woman was who was rescued or the 12-year-old girl. We are hearing, according to our affiliate KXAN, that this was believed to be his stepdaughter.
SANCHEZ: Brooke Baldwin on my team is going to be trying to drill down on exactly what his relationship was with the town, what happened in the house, and also what kind of family he may have left behind.
VELSHI: Let me show you before you go into your show, let me show our viewers something that you've been digging into, just to set the stage.
This note. Let me give you a few paragraphs from this note. It's very long and Rick has read every part of it and his whole team are on it. Let me just read this, "While very few working people would say they haven't had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say."
SANCHEZ: Well, let me just stop you there real quick. And here's why, OK, we have done a little more digging on this. First of all, let me tell you the reaction on Twitter and on MySpace and on Facebook and on e-mails we are receiving and on iReports. A lot of the folks are saying, I understand this guy's anger. It is an amazing thing to share with you right now. Usually, when we report a story like this, you know --
VELSHI: I have got it on paper, here.
SANCHEZ: And please do not misunderstand me, I don't think there's -- I have not gotten a single letter from anyone saying that they condone what he did, please, on the record. However, there is a lot of pent up frustration with Americans out there about the IRS, their current economic situation, their own economic frustrations and taxes in particular.
And there is this one particular tax that was passed in 1980 -- help me out here, 1986. It was the -- the Tax Reform Act of 1986 -- pardon me, the Tax Reform Act of 1984, where it had a section called 1706. We have been looking into this. We have had a lot of the folks right here behind Ali and me to look into this to see what it was that so frustrated so many Americans, including him. And we have found out that there is a huge controversy involving that particular tax code and we have booked someone coming up in the next hour to take us through that. So it's just important to note that there's some substance there.
VELSHI: I want to tell you, we just told you what our affiliate was reporting about a woman and daughter, stepdaughter being in the house. I just want to be careful, because everything that we're reporting -- you know, how this is in breaking news, right? Everything comes and goes, we're not entirely sure, we want to get everything right.
There are conflicting reports. There was a woman and teenage girl at the house around 9:15. Conflicting reports say they arrived at the house after the fire started and were distraught. So we're just trying to get information on were they inside the house and rescued, or were they outside of the house? We don't know. We're trying to figure this out. This is a lot of conflicting information we have.
SANCHEZ: We should probably mention, you and I both knew about that report. I mean, that report came out four or five hours ago, it's gone back and forth. And we've got some guidelines here that we use at CNN where we just -- unless we are completely sure that something has happened, we don't report it. So now we know for sure, as Ali has just mentioned, that something regarding this woman and this girl. Whether they were in the house and ran out --
VELSHI: When we reading that note, we were trying to figure out who his family is if there's family and where they are. So we're getting a little closer to understanding this.
But to your point, Rick, a lot of people -- and I've been getting a lot of these comments on Twitter and Facebook, the "who cares?" Why do we want to know his motivations? Why do we want to -- I have got to tell you, as a person who lives in the country, I'd like to know what people's motivations are to do bad things to see whether there is anything we can do about it. Not to justify anybody's gripes, but how do we know that? How do you read somebody to know that they are really angry and what they might be up to? When we read that note and I talked to Tom Fuentes, formerly of the FBI, and I read that last sentence to him where he says, this last sentence --
SANCHEZ: Yes, it is right here.
VELSHI: Well, "Mr. Big Brother IRS Man" --
SANCHEZ: "Let's try something different. Take my pound of flesh and sleep well."
VELSHI: And he says, that does not constitute a credible and detailed threat. It is not the kind of thing that if the IRS got that, they might not say, hey, we have to watch out for this guy, he might do something bad to us. The IRS -- surprise, surprise -- gets lots of this type of thing.
SANCHEZ: Aren't you taken aback somewhat by the fact that -- and I just shared this a little while ago and that is that there are so many people out there who say, I don't condone what this guy did, it is absolutely crazy, how he can hurt that many people, how can he be so selfish -- those are exact quotes I'm telling you about that I have been hearing -- but a lot of people understand what his frustration was. And it is a sentiment that is shared by a lot of Americans at this particular given time, maybe through no fault of anyone else. He puts a lot --
VELSHI: But nobody think it's OK to fly your plane into a building that you have lots of concerns.
SANCHEZ: Well, hell, no.
VELSHI: Here is another one I'm getting a lot of, I don't know if you heard it.
SANCHEZ: Well, it is interesting that there is a sentiment out there. There are many frustrated Americans out there who understand his frustration, and don't in any way condone his action. That is all. That is all.
VELSHI: Here is issue two, I have a lot of people to say, why are you saying or why are government officials saying it is not terrorism? It is just because it is not somebody from a different background who has got some letter who says he wants to destroy something? Is this terrorism when you fly a plane into a building that is occupied by people?
SANCHEZ: The semantics game is one that we could play until midnight tonight. I think it is best not the play it when it involves one human being with one grudge directed at one particular group or one particular person. I think that if we start to stretch the definition of terrorism to involve a neighbor's grudge against his community or his neighborhood or his homeowner's association, then it starts getting a little too thin and we start getting a little confused in the semantics. I believe it is correct to stay away from the use of the word "terrorism" in a case like this.
VELSHI: Rick, you've done great work not just for the show you are about to do, but in helping me out in getting through the letter and understanding what it was, because this is not the kind of thing while you're sitting there doing live TV you can try to figure out. This is complicated and there's a lot in it and you know it well, so I'm going to hand it over to you.
SANCHEZ: Thanks.
VELSHI: Rick is going to take you through the next couple of hours.
