Yesterday Joseph Stack set his house on fire, drove to the airport, departed in his Piper Cherokee and flew it into the side of an office building that housed the local IRS staff in Austin, TX. Initial reports erroneously stated that he stole the plane because it was registered in CA to a company that later was identified as his. The ignorant reporter I was listening to was interviewing an “aviation expert” and trying to pin the kamikaze attack on easy access to general aviation aircraft. The interviewee saw where the reporter was headed with her line of questioning and headed her off by telling her that putting private aircraft under some sort of government lock-down was not the answer. He added that the 1995 attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City using a truck loaded with explosives was far more devastating. Old Joe left plenty of warning signs, including a web site where he ranted at length against the IRS, in the months and weeks leading up to yesterday when he apparently snapped. Somebody missed an opportunity for an intervention. Thankfully the attack resulted in only two deaths – it could have been far worse.
More from NPR.
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And one of those deaths was Stack. Interesting how the “We need to limit public access to Cessna 172s else more of these tragedies will happen!” rears its ugly head. Planes don’t kill people…
That’s where the reporter was headed. Idiots.
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