This morning, a single-engine small plane crashed into an office building in Austin, Tex. Early news reports indicate that the pilot -- now said to be an anti-federal-government crank who posted a suicide note on his Web page -- took off after setting fire to his house.
The building houses federal offices, including those of the Internal Revenue Service.
Some early reports said the plane took off from Waco, but airport officials in Waco are now disputing that. Instead, the plane evidently took off from the municipal airport in Georgetown, Texas, 25 miles from Austin.
They're still sorting out the facts in Austin, but here's an excellent early story from the Austin Statesman newspaper. This Statesman report, which was on line only 2 hours after the crash, is an indication of how heads-up spot-news reporting is done, on the run -- while the AP is still sucking wind.
Early reports said that the plane that hit the building was a Cirrus SR22, a single-engine, 4-seat aircraft. But officials are now saying those reports were wrong and that the plane appears to have been a Piper Cherokee.
Assuming the MSM are finally waking up and catching up with this story, I'll sign off on it now. Although as indications mount that this was in fact an act of homegrown terrorism -- and the FAA is calling it just that -- I do need to note, sadly, that the poor Los Angeles Times is at this moment reporting the following online, conveyed credulously from your ever-vigilant Homeland Security Department, ever alert:
"We do not yet know the cause of the plane crash," said Matt Chandler, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman in Washington. "We have no reason to believe it was connected to any criminal or terrorist activity."
Oh well. Maybe Homeland Security is too otherwise occupied setting up those pushcarts for the TSA agents to roam around airports checking passengers hands.
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By JOE SHARKEY
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