USA: a pilot hurls his plane against a building in Texas

AUSTIN (United States) - An American deliberately precipitated Thursday his small aircraft into a building housing a tax services office in Texas (south), having apparently set fire to his home and left a suicide message on Internet.

•    Two people were seriously injured and eleven others slightly, while a government employee and the driver were missing, authorities said, adding that the accident did not appear to be a terrorist act.
  
     The plane crashed on the second floor of a building of seven levels in Austin, Texas at 9:56 a.m.  (5H56 GMT) and caught fire, causing a large explosion that forced people to flee through the windows .
  
     In the evening, the police chief Art Acevedo of Austin told the press that given the size of the fireball that devastated the building of the tax authorities (IRS), this moderate figure seemed miraculous.
  
     Two fighter jets from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad) took off after the accident, the spokesman for the White House Robert Gibbs said that President Barack Obama had been kept informed of the situation by his counterterrorism adviser John Brennan.
  
     He said that the accident did not appear to be a terrorist act and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would conduct an investigation in collaboration with other federal agencies.
  
     "Currently we have no reason to believe that there is a link with terrorist activities," said a spokesman for DHS Matthew Chandler, stating "continue to gather information."
  
     "This seems like an intentional act by an isolated individual, and it seems that this individual was targeting the federal offices in this building," explained on his side Austin Art Acevedo to the press, adding that there was "really no reason for alarm."
  
     The pilot was identified as Joseph Stack. The man, aged 53 by CNN, would have set fire to his home in Austin before taking his own plane in a hangar nearby and hurl it on the tax authorities.
  
     He would have left a suicide message on the internet in which he criticizes the government, explaining that the unfair system of tax levies has ruined his live.
  
     The note, whose authenticity could not be proven, says that "violence is not only an answer, but is the only answer."
  
     Claire Cowand, who was driving to her office when she saw the small plane rushing towards the building told the press she had seen "a huge fireball, a huge explosion," and the scene was "incredible, surreal and rather terrifying."
  
     According to another testimony, the chance has saved some employees quickly trapped in the burning building through a truck’s ladder belonging to a glaziers’ company who was fortunately near.
   
• Ennaharonline/ M. O.