Breaking: Small Plane Crashes into Austin Building

[chump]

One source, from the reporters standpoint, still unconfirmed, would be the unnamed agent that Watson initially refers to; and the other is the witness on the ground who said that the FBI was on the scene immediately. If the hazmat trucks were already waiting accross the street, and the fire department was at his house in 5 minutes, that would make 4 anomalies that could possibly indicate foreknowledge: If all of these stories are true! That's a big IF.

When I read that, well of course it reminded me of OKC, 9/11 and 7/7. Authorities were on the ground before those events because they just happened to running a drill. (?)

As far as I know, Watson is the only one who have reported the above. For now, I agree with Nordic (et al) that the PP gang has strained their credibility and the article might be bullshit. We'll see if he or somebody doesn't come up with some better proof.

Ciao

[Alfred Joe's Boy]

http://cryptogon.com/?p=13859

Cyber ShockWave
February 19th, 2010
I’m quietly looking into the Joe Stack situation, and in the process, I came across the story below, which I had somehow missed.

Via: AFP:

Former top US officials staged a digital doomsday simulation on Tuesday in which a huge cyberattack crashes cellphone networks, slows Web traffic to a crawl and plunges major cities into darkness.

Dubbed “Cyber ShockWave,” the elaborate exercise was held in a Washington hotel room transformed for the day into the White House Situation Room, where the president and his advisers typically meet to address national emergencies.

Former president George W. Bush’s Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff played the role of National Security Advisor as the “cabinet” sought to respond to a nightmare scenario drawn up by former CIA director Michael Hayden.

As the “crisis” escalated, the officials discussed various actions including calling out the National Guard, nationalizing the utility companies and staging a retaliatory strike if the authors of the cyberattack become known.

“If this is an attack on the United States the president, as commander in chief, has the authority to use the full powers at his disposal,” said former deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick, in her role as attorney general.

“We’re in good shape from a command-and-control standpoint,” Charles Wald, a retired general acting as Secretary of Defense, reassured the team.

“We can take action offensively if we know where to go,” said Wald, former deputy commander of US European Command. “Problematically, we don’t know where that is.”

“I do think we need to be careful about talking about acts of war,” cautioned John Negroponte, the former Director of National Intelligence who switched hats for the simulation to portray the Secretary of State.

The exercise, which was filmed by CNN and will be broadcast at a later date, was organized by the Bipartisan Policy Center to “educate the public about our vulnerabilities,” said Eileen McMenamin, BPC vice president of communications.

Three large video screens behind the participants displayed multi-color maps of the United States with a series of mock updates and a fictional television network, “GNN,” broadcast news reports on the cascading crisis.

The simulated cyberattack was spread through a free application for smartphones about “March Madness,” the wildly popular annual US college basketball tournament.

The “March Madness” malware contained video footage of the Red Army although a security adviser warned this may be a “red herring” and whether the attack was launched by a state, terrorists or criminals was not immediately clear.

Launched from servers in Russia, it first crippled cellphone networks, then landlines, then the Internet and eventually the electricity grid in the entire eastern United States, exacerbated by a pair of bombings at power stations.

New York, Philadelphia and Washington were plunged into darkness, airline traffic was disrupted and the financial markets ground to a halt.

“This is a massive blow to the solar plexus of the economy,” said “Treasury Secretary” Stephen Friedman, former director of the National Economic Council.

National Security Adviser Chertoff peppered the cabinet with questions.

“If we were to shut a server down in Russia, would the Russians view that as an attack?” he asked. “If the attacker is either a state actor or a terrorist group what are our options for responding or retaliating?”

Speaking after the scenario was over, Negroponte said it was fairly realistic. “None of it struck me as particularly outlandish,” he said.

Former deputy CIA director John McLaughlin, who was bumped up to Director of National Intelligence for the cyber game, said Al-Qaeda would clearly “like to carry out something like this but we don’t know their capabilities.”

“The Chinese and the Russians have the capability,” added Fran Townsend, Bush’s one-time Homeland Security advisor, who was promoted to Homeland Security secretary for the simulation.

Wald, the Pentagon chief for a day, said: “I think the scenario we saw today is believable. I think we’re preparing for it. I don’t think we’re as prepared as we should be.”

[JackRiddler]

Alfred Joe's Boy:

Started a thread on CyberShockwave yesterday:

Negroponte, Kean, Hamilton, Chertoff, Former NSC Friedman, Gorelick and a Rogue's Gallery of Former and Current National Security Apparatchiks Stage Public Martial Law Exercise in Washington DC - Soon To Be Broadcast on CNN
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=27179&p=320683#p320683

[elfismiles]

with video...

Texas Plane Crash: Did Suicidal Pilot Joe Stack Have Explosives on Board?

Apparent Suicide Note Indicates Attack on IRS Planned Well in Advance
By SARAH NETTER and PIERRE THOMAS
Feb. 19, 2010

The sheer volume of flames and smoke pouring from the Austin office building where a suicidal pilot slammed his plane at full speed has prompted authorities to investigate whether he had some kind of explosive on board.

Joe Stack flew his plane into three floors of IRS building after a tax dispute.

More PhotosJoe Stack, 53, topped off his single engine Piper Cherokee with fuel before crashing into the IRS offices in a kamikaze mission designed to punish the government he believed wronged him.

The full tank of fuel is believed to have contributed to the force of the explosion and subsequent fire, which investigators believe was probably a deliberate tactic by Stack. Investigators are also trying to determine whether Stack had explosives on board with him, sources told ABC News.

Firefighters spent most of the day Thursday trying to extinguish the flames that prevented investigators from recovering Stack's body and searching for anyone else who may have been injured or killed.

Despite the spectacular crash and fire that left the seven story building a blackened hulk, only Stack and one other person are believed to have died. The body of the unidentified victim, a federal employe, was pulled from the building Thursday night.

Investigators believe Stack was the author of a lengthy, hate-filled diatribe that raged against the IRS, President George W. Bush and his own accountant. Posted right around the same time as the 10 a.m. crash, it was signed "Joe Stack (1956-2010.)"

The note was titled "Well Mr. Big Brother IRS Man … take my pound of flesh and sleep well." It details years spent working and paying taxes, but not reaping the benefits of what he considered to be a functional government.

"I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at 'big brother' while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won't continue; I have just had enough," the note reads.

Records show two of Stack's software companies had been suspended by the state tax board.

"I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less," he wrote.

Stack's family has not yet commented on the crash, but his wife -- who was mentioned by name in his suicide note -- is expected to speak today.

Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Michael Welner told "Good Morning America" that while it may appear that Stack simply snapped under the weight of tax debt, it was clear from the suicide note that this had been brewing for some time.

"This is the kind of crime that's planned for a long time," Welner said. "I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he practiced."

Suicidal Texas Plane Crash: 'Crime of Rebellion'
Calling the attack a "crime of rebellion," Welner said it was obvious that Stack had planned the crash to maximize public attention by invoking both the Oklahoma City bombing of a federal building and the 9/11 terrorism attacks.

"I think it's important to distinguish this as a spectacle murder because it's carried out in order to get on the news," he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration told ABC News that Stack did not communicate with air traffic controllers once he got in the air around 9:40 a.m. nor did he file a flight plan.

Officials tod ABC News that once a man like Stack decides to plan this type of attack, there is very little they can do to stop it, especially once he's in the air and locked on a target.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/texas-plane-c ... id=9885576

[§ê¢rꆧ]

Some new stuff in this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/us/19 ... nted=print

February 19, 2010
Man Crashes Plane Into Texas I.R.S. Office
By MICHAEL BRICK

...

[b]They returned on Thursday morning to find their house ablaze, their belongings destroyed. Officials said the house fire was deliberately set, casting Mr. Stack as the primary suspect. But by that point he was gone, airborne.
...

BUT

Witnesses told KXAN-TV they saw a neighbor rescue Stack's wife of two years - classical pianist Sheryl Housh Stack, a teaching assistant at the University of Texas - and her 12-year-old daughter, Margaux.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... z0fzpNhx0B

Which is it?

[elfismiles]

ATC Tapes of Austin Texas Plane Crash
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjIKnSxeqhs

On February 18, 2010, Joseph Andrew Stack, flying a Piper Cherokee PA-28 (registration N2889D) plane, crashed into Building I of the Echelon office complex in Austin, Texas, United States. An Internal Revenue Service (IRS) field office is located in the seven-story office building along with other state and federal government agencies. Stack had posted a manifesto dated February 18, 2010, to his business website.

[JackRiddler]

Some new stuff in this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/us/19 ... nted=print

February 19, 2010
Man Crashes Plane Into Texas I.R.S. Office
By MICHAEL BRICK

...

[b]They returned on Thursday morning to find their house ablaze, their belongings destroyed. Officials said the house fire was deliberately set, casting Mr. Stack as the primary suspect. But by that point he was gone, airborne.
...

BUT

Witnesses told KXAN-TV they saw a neighbor rescue Stack's wife of two years - classical pianist Sheryl Housh Stack, a teaching assistant at the University of Texas - and her 12-year-old daughter, Margaux.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... z0fzpNhx0B

Which is it?

Can't say for sure, but the earlier story is not sourced to the neighbor doing the supposed act of rescue, but to others seeing the neighbor and, apparently, the family. If they saw the neighbor and the mother and daughter outside the house, perhaps going in and out of the house to rescue possessions, the "witnesses" may have thought this was what was happening. Alternatively, the neighbor went into the house to see if anyone was inside, then the "witnesses" later saw the neighbor with the family outside the house and drew the conclusion that he "rescued" them. Also, how did he effect the rescue? Unless they'd been trapped behind a wall of fire, they would have walked out of a house with presumably more than one door (and windows), true?

The current story seems to have Sheryl Stack as the ultimate source - but through "officials". However, I don't see why officials would lie to make Joseph Stack look better (i.e., they are saying he didn't try to kill his family before he crash-bombed the IRS). I do see why early press reports would be tempted to spectacularize anything that happened if it made Stack look all the more villainous and thus provided a more moving story.

[elfismiles]

Thursday, February 18, 2010
Another Plane Into A Building

A plane from the company Telsa crashed and now this has occurred. The news has taken place so soon after the Amy Bishop shootings. It is interwoven, as has been noted often in my work and that of others, such as Dr. David Phillips and Dr. Steven Stack (no relation to today's pilot). See my chapter, "Planes Into Buildings" in The Copycat Effect.

Entire post article here:
http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2010/02/stack.html

[dbcooper41]

"JackRiddler


Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2008 2:59 pm
Posts: 2909
Re: Breaking: Small Plane Crashes into Austin Building
Some new stuff in this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/us/19 ... nted=print"

looks like a few red flags here.


"Andrew Joseph Stack III"

3 names+III. 33, raised in an orphanage. i wonder who andy jo stack 1 and 2 were? or was he all 3?

“I knew Joe had a hang-up with the I.R.S. on account of them
breaking him, taking his savings away,” said Jack Cook, the
stepfather of Mr. Stack’s wife, in a telephone interview from his
home in Oklahoma. “And that’s undoubtedly the reason he flew
the airplane against that building. Not to kill people, but just to
damage the I.R.S.”

breaking him? abuse? sounds like a classic stalking technique.
i wanna know more about jack cook.

"Not to kill people, but just to damage the I.R.S."

and he did so in an almost remarkable fashion. how with 190 people in the building, did that damage get done, and only a dozen or so casualties?didn't anyone show up for work that day? must be the slow seaon for the tax people.

"Within hours of the crash, before the death or even the
identity of the pilot had been confirmed, officials ruled out any
connection to terrorist groups or causes."

how exactly did they identify him so fast? looks like the tail numbers would be a little hard to read under the circumstances.
plus, it was registered in california, so why associate it with a house fire in austin so quickly? he didn't file a flight plan and he didn't make any contact with the FAA. so how did they associate him with the event so quickly?
the early reports even had the wrong model plane and had his burning house in waco.(willful misinfo?)

does anyone know what time exactly they did id him as the pilot?
anyone got a good pic of the plane wreckage?
and does it seem strange that after the plane was identified as belonging to him, he was proclaimed the pilot instead of the "registered owner"?
wasn't that a bit of a leap to not qualify the report of his name. he was definetly and decisively proclaimed the pilot. though it was many hours before they could even get to his body.
so who id'ed him first and when was it?

"By the account of Mr. Cook, Mr. Stack was raised in an
orphanage in Hershey, Pa., with a brother and sister, leaving
the orphanage after high school to attend college.

orphan? mk? anyone know what orphanage or what college he attended?

Mrs. Stack, 50, listed in records at the University of Texas as a
graduate student in music performance, brought her own back
story to the marriage, having spent several years in the sway of
a religious cult before her parents orchestrated a rescue.

sway of a religious cult?
which one? "who rescued"? who are her parents?

On Wednesday night, Mrs. Stack
took her 12-year-old daughter, Margaux, to a hotel to get away
from her husband.
They returned on Thursday morning to find their house ablaze,
their belongings destroyed. Officials said the house fire was
deliberately set, casting Mr. Stack as the primary suspect. But
by that point he was gone, airborne."

what perfect timing!!

and if you look at the client list i posted earlier it is difficult to imagine that he didn't have a security clearance working for these guys.
http://www.iechome.com/


one more thing, what was the band he played in? the bill eli band?
i wonder how i could "book" them.
http://thebookofeli.warnerbros.com/

btw(another of his clients, warnerbros)

[JackRiddler]

!

Someone who says he was in a band with Joe Stack has a thread running at DU. Member with high number of posts:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/di ... 89x7747831

His name was Joe Stack
I won't defend what he did because there's no defense of it, but Joe wasn't a teabagger he wasn't left or right wing. He very obviously had some serious problems and it's a real tragedy especially for the innocent victims, but the manifesto was all over the board politically.
Joe played in my band for about 3 years and was mostly apolitical.
I hate what he did and had no idea at the level of dispair he was feeling.

I've now spent the last 30 hours answering questions about what he was like. He obviously cracked....severly, but any political militancy he had was recent and seems to suggest mental illness rather than activism.

Again I'm not defending what he did I'm just telling you what it looks like from my end.

[Aphelion]

I listened to Alex Jones' rant about this last night. Quite by accident, actually - the boyfriend and I were trying to compare his circus mongering to Glenn Beck's, though I think there are just different flavors of bat shit insanity.

Jones' was flying off the hook about the incident being a false-flag attack against the tea-baggers/liberals, and I had to uncomfortably admit that I was thinking the same. The OCB unnervingly came to mind. If it IS true that HAZMAT and other forces were conveniently stationed nearby it certainly would be more than just a thankful coincidence.

It's also slightly hard for me to readily believe that a man would spend so much time writing up a manifesto like the one Stacks did. Suicide notes, if any are left at all, are usually very brief and to the point. Psychologically the act of committing yourself to suicide days in advance is somewhat rare. Fits of rage that would trigger something like flying a plane into a building aren't normally that elongated - by that time the victim in question has had the time to settle down into some form of rational thought.

So we have a seven page manifesto that took two days to compose. The manifesto resonates anger and frustrations, certainly - but I would tend to think most who fly into a non-cognitive fit of rage would be a little less articulate given the flurry of emotion, don't you?

The man was a computer engineer, no less. It appears by his listing of projects that they were pretty credible. I live with an engineer and have one in the family - they tend to be frustratingly methodical when it comes to, well, everything.

Personally I would like to see if any details are released about his former current state of mind. Despite the report of Stack's recent relenting to bouts and fits of anger - and as we all know, the government, IRS, and the current state of the economy may make us furious, you either have to be off your rocker in some angle of psychosis or he somehow envisioned himself ready to make the sacrifice to become a martyr. Which, sources are now somewhat denying any association in political activism or even politics itself. So if he was a loose cannon and mentally unstable, many people in that frame of mind would just as easily turn to a gun.

So he gets in a plane instead. And then rams it into an IRS building.

I don't buy it.

Which he is, undoubtedly, becoming a martyr to some groups. If the event merely was the result of a build-up of frustrations and/or mental unrest, then as sad as it is to say, more power to him. The same tune most have us have been singing since Dubyah's reign is "Someone pull their head out of the sand and do something." Well, when the protests fail, and the letters to congress fail, and the phone calls to congress fail, and all the gandhi-loving, flower waving peaceful protesters see clips like those from the G20 Summit...

"Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask."


@ nathan28: Love the LOLCAT photo. In an otherwise dismaying turn of events, it certainly is nice to smile.

[dbcooper41]

his plane was still registered in lincoln, california.
how did they cross that to austin, tx?

and how long had he been in austin?
wasn't he supposed to update his registration when he moved?

http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry ... txt=N2889D

FAA REGISTRY
N-Number Inquiry Results



N2889D is Assigned

Data Updated each Federal Working Day at Midnight







Aircraft Description

Serial Number28-7911227 Type RegistrationIndividual
Manufacturer NamePIPER Certificate Issue Date03/02/1998
ModelPA-28-236 StatusValid
Type AircraftFixed Wing Single-EngineType
EngineReciprocating
Pending Number ChangeNoneDealerNo
Date Change AuthorizedNoneMode S Code50567512
MFR YearNoneFractional OwnerNO



Registered Owner

NameSTACK JOSEPH A
Street661 6TH ST APT 111
CityLINCOLN StateCALIFORNIA
CountyPLACER Zip Code95648-1824
CountryUNITED STATES



Airworthiness

Engine ManufacturerUnknownClassificationStandard
Engine ModelUnknownCategoryNormal
A/W Date06/07/1979

This is the most current Airworthiness Certificate
data, however, it may not reflect the current aircraft
configuration. For that information, see the aircraft
record. A copy can be obtained at
Http://162.58.35.241/e.gov/ND/airrecordsND.asp

it doesn't look like there was much plane left to identify after the crash.
and i swear it looks like a might big boom for that little plane.(in my opinion; they blew it up, same with his house, too much booom?)
does anyone have a good pic of the plane tail wreckage? this one was apparently taken well after the fire was put out.

[dqueue]

dbcooper: Do you follow Daniel Hopsicker's research and reporting at all? He has done a fair amount of plane tracking. A recurring them through his efforts is the almost intentional ineptitude of the FAA regarding airplane registrations. He's highlighted the seeming ambiguity surrounding sales of airplanes betwixt nebulous entities and front organizations. As such, it's not too alarming to me that his plane remained registered in California.

[dbcooper41]

dqueue
Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2010 12:04 am

Re: Breaking: Small Plane Crashes into Austin Building
dbcooper: Do you follow Daniel Hopsicker's research and reporting at all? He has done a fair amount of plane tracking. A recurring them through his efforts is the almost intentional ineptitude of the FAA regarding airplane registrations. He's highlighted the seeming ambiguity surrounding sales of airplanes betwixt nebulous entities and front organizations. As such, it's not too alarming to me that his plane remained registered in California.

i was just reading about how the FAA is trying to tighten up the registration system.
but wouldn't their ineptitude make it even more unlikely that they could have traced him from CA to TX that quickly?

[dqueue]

but wouldn't their ineptitude make it even more unlikely that they could have traced him from CA to TX that quickly?

Mayhap. If the FAA is the only agency or data source used in his identification. However, I imagine a multitude of database correlations coalesce into identifying a suspect.

In this instance, it may have stemmed from a real "boots on the ground" investigation... While he may not have filed a flight plan, he was definitely cleared for take-off from the regional airport that morning. Further, he was clearly on record as having stored his plane at that airport. He even had a rapport with airport personnel.

Having watched the live stream pretty well from the moment Miles posted it yesterday, I watched the story develop. Information trickled in very slowly. It didn't seem, to me, that he was immediately identified. Identification took a little while.