While we were in Pittsburgh last week we saw a news bulletin that an airplane had crashed into one of the IRS buildings. Our good friends Chrissy and Craig had a way too up-close vantage point. I got this email from Craig that day:
Here’s a quick iPhone dump of pictures I took Thursday. It was a
normal day at work for us at our desks behind our computers. Around
10:30, our building (#3) started shaking, like an earthquake. I looked
up and out the window to see an explosion from building #4 next door.
There was a huge fireball that extended 20 feet out and 40 feet high,
blowing glass and insulation out from the building. We all started
yelling on our floor, rushing to corner office windows. At first I
thought it was a gas tanker truck that had blown up on the frontage
road. But then someone yelled out I think it was a plane.We rushed outside to help, take photographs, all while police,
ambulances, and fire trucks converged on the scene. They quickly told
all buildings to evacuate and leave, but a lot stuck around taking
pictures and just still in awe.After talking with Chrissy about a house fire on our street, I stopped
by there on the way home, and that’s when a neighbor clued me in that
the husband had set fire to the house, then took his small plane and
crashed it into the Irs building.There’s a manifesto from his website dated the 18th about his intents.
That’s floating around in another email.Here’s a dump of everything I took, didn’t have time to edit any of
them because I had to run and catch a plane Thursday afternoon.
Lynn found the guy’s website where he left a suicide note. If you don’t want to read it, I can tell you the short version is that he had a series of bad experiences with tax stuff and flipped out.
You can read the full note here.
