one has told nbc, that this was an aircraft that left the georgetown municipal airport in texas at about 9:40 central time, so 10:40 eastern time, about two hours ago. and the government official tells nbc that investigators are looking into the possibility that a man who may have burned his house down may have stolen an aircraft in georgetown and flew it into the building. again, kxan is reporting that s the nbc affiliate there in austin, that the owner of the house on fire is joseph stack, a software engineer who is a pilot that flies in and out of georgetown airport. kxan reports that his wife and daughter are out of the house, that they were taken to a neighbor s house and that they re safe from the fire. but, again, we re being told that s who owns the house that we saw on fire in that kxan report. and a government official is telling nbc news that they are investigators are looking into the possibility that the owner of the house may be related to the plane crash. let s go ba
time this morning, that local police in austin were called to the home of joseph stack for a domestic disturbance. they said he set his house on fire and took off for the georgetown municipal airport 30 miles north of austin, texas, jumped into his plane, a small piper cherokee, drove it to austin where it crashed into this building. the question is, was the crash intentional? did joseph stack intend to kill himself? ntsb is heading here to sort through the wreckage to determine if there was a problem with the plane. we ve already seen people in fbi jackets, local police, local fire department there on the scene sorting through the rubble of this plane crash. as it stands, we know two people injured, one person unaccounted for, the pilot presumed dead at this point. we re staying on top of this breaking news here on msnbc. quick break here. we ll be right back.
they evacuated the adjoining homes and managed the keep the fire from spreading to those. around that time, a neighbor, we re told, went into the home and rescued the mother, sheryl stack, and her 12-year-old daughter. they are now in the safekeeping of some neighbor friends down the street and across the way, and obviously not talking to the press at this point, and dan, we wouldn t think of disturbing them. now, the question is what happened to the husband, joseph stack? they have not been able to go into the house. the roof collapsed in the house, it s a total loss. it s not stable enough to go in and do what they call a primary search at this point, which is what they would ordinarily do as soon as possible. but we re told and it s been confirmed from multiple sources that joseph stack was okay, there the feed from kxan, the live shot oh, here he s back. reporter: that maybe he fled for his plane. that is all speculation.
i m harris falker. news breaking in austin, texas. we re awaiting a news conference by the ntsb and f.b.i. to begin at any moment. we ll be monitoring it for you and bring you breaking details that you will need to know. here is what we know at this point. you may have heard it by now. a plane hit a building in austin, causing a fireball a few hours ago. the pilot dead. two people hospitalized. still at this late hour one person who worked in the building is unaccounted for. the first time you will see the pilot is right now. fox news canal just getting the picture in. federal officials identifying him as joseph stack. they re investigating whether he slammed his plane in the building on purpose to blow up irs offices there. you see some 200 federal tax employees work in that building in austin.
registered to him, to his software engineering company. he took that plane into the air, and then flew it directly, it appears, into a building, a commercial building that houses offices, about 190 employees of the internal revenue service. now, it is by no means the biggest concentration of irs employees in the austin area, but it was one that perhaps he was familiar with, had flown over before. we are still waiting for a final word on how many people were injured, or whether there were any fatalities, other than the pilot himself. joseph stack, who, as i say, left a suicide note basically, a long list of grievances against the federal government, but specifically concentrating on his problems with the internal revenue service. decades of tax problems. they seemed to get worse in 1986 when the tax law was changed which affected people like him, cutting engineers, consulting software engineers. he was hit by that.