Texas, February 20: The software engineer who crashed his plane into an Austin, Texas office building that held more than 200 federal tax agency employees may have removed seats from the aircraft to make room for extra fuel to cause the most destruction, CNN reported today.
A law enforcement official familiar with the investigation in Austin told CNN that several seats were missing from Joseph Stack’s Piper Cherokee PA-28 and a fuel drum was also missing at the airport from which he took off Thursday.
“I think there is a good chance he might have put it on his plane,” the official said, according to Fox News.
Stack, 53, took off from Georgetown Municipal Airport, about 30 miles from Austin, at 9:40am ET and flew low over the Austin skyline before plowing into the side of the Echelon 1 office building just before 10am.
Flames shot from the building, windows exploded and terrified workers rushed to get out.
He killed himself and IRS worker Vernon Hunter, 67.
Thirteen people also were injured in the crash.
Authorities say Joseph Stack III was angry with the government and crashed his plane into the building.
—Agencies