The following are eyewitness accounts of a plane crashing into an Austin, Texas, office building where nearly 200 federal tax employees work. Officials identified the pilot as Joseph Stack, a 53-year-old software engineer, who crashed the plane intentionally. Stack was confirmed dead.
— IRS Agent William Winnie said he was on the third floor of the building when he saw a light-colored, single engine plane coming toward the building, TheStatesman.com reported.
“It looked like it was coming right in my window,” Winnie said, according to the Web site.
— Andrew Jacobson was on the second floor when he heard a "big whoomp" and then a second explosion. He thought a bomb exploded.
"When I went to look out the window I saw wreckage, wheels and everything. That's when I realized it was a plane," said Jacobson, whose bloody hands were bandaged.
Jacobson, also an IRS revenue officer, said about six people couldn't use the stairwell because of smoke and debris. He found metal bar to bust a window so the group could crawl out on a concrete ledge where they were rescued by firefighters.
— "It was insane," said Matt Farney, 39, who was in the parking lot of a nearby Home Depot. "It didn't look like he was out of control or anything."
— Reginaldo Tiul-Tiul, a dishwasher at the nearby Sushi Sake Japanese Cuisine, said he had just gotten off a bus and was waiting to go into work when he saw the plane crash.
"I looked at my co-worker and said, 'Why is that plane so low?"' Tiul-Tiul, 30, said in Spanish. "It went straight for the building."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox