By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX –
A federal law enforcement official has identified the pilot in the Austin, Texas, plane crash as Joseph Stack and says investigators are 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."
The IRS said in a statement that the small plane struck its Austin offices, where 190 of the agency's employees work. Officials say they are still trying to account for all the workers. The official said authorities are looking for a motive at Stack's company Web site. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an investigation still in progress.
The Web site featured a long note dated Thursday denouncing the government and the IRS in particular. It cited the Austin man's problems with the agency.
Investigators want to know if today's fiery crash of a small plane into an Austin building that houses the IRS -- was intentional.
KUT Radio Reporter Mose Buchele says at least one witness believes the crash was deliberate.
Buchele: I spoke with one man who said he witnessed the impact of the plane, which was a small white private plane or jet. He says the second he saw the plane bank toward the building, he had little doubt, in his own opinion, that it was an intentional act. He said he was calling 9-1-1 the second he saw this take place. That was his own opinion as a witness of what happened.
The crash sent workers fleeing as ceilings crumbled, windows shattered and flames shot out of the building. Thick black and gray smoke was billowing out of the second and third stories.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford says the pilot didn't file a flight plan.
Assistant Austin Fire Chief Harry Evans says one person is missing and two people were taken to a hospital. Their conditions and identities weren't immediately known.
IRS worker Peggy Walker was at her desk when the plane crashed. She says: "It felt like a bomb blew off."
Texas free of drought for first time since '07
For the first time since 2007, there's no drought in Texas.
The state had been enduring some of the nation's most severe drought conditions until rains started falling about six months ago. The new federal drought map and Texas climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon both agree the state's finally done with drought conditions.
Now there are only a few counties considered abnormally dry, but not drought-stricken. This time last year, more than 60 percent of the state was under drought.
Nationally, Michigan and several Western states are still under some drought conditions, but only Hawaii has areas of extreme drought.
Richardson student killed getting off bus
Counselors are available after a Dallas-area student died when she forced her way out of a moving school bus and was run over. Richardson police say the 15-year-old girl died Wednesday afternoon in the accident about three miles from J.J. Pearce High School.
Investigator Jonathan Wakefield says two other students had been fighting, the bus driver stopped the vehicle and kicked the pair off, then he resumed the route.
Wakefield says the girl, identified by medical examiners as Anquanete Patterson, then demanded the bus be stopped. Richardson police say she forced a door open and fell out, slipping under the rear wheels of the bus.