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AUSTIN, Texas - A small plane crashed Thursday into a multistory office building in Austin, causing a fire and sending black smoke billowing from the seven-story structure, officials said. At least two people were injured and a third was unaccounted for. Law enforcement officials in Austin said the pilot may have intentionally crashed the plane. The aircraft hit the Echelon Building, which is next to a major highway in north Austin.

Today's tragic event in Austin provides us with a unique opportunity to examine how idiotic and self-serving the typical responses are made by the apologists for Islamic terrorism (Muslim and non-Muslim alike) when one of their co-religionists shoots up an Army base, bombs a building, blows up a pizza parlor full of teenagers, etc. So here are some of the comments that would have been made by the usual suspects if they were actually operating in standard terrorthink mode: 1) The IRS should ask itself, "Why do they hate us?" (submitted by Fareed Zakaria) 2) This was a desperate act...

Man flew plane into IRS Building after setting his house on fire in Texas.

News Alert, single engine plane plows into building in Austin, Texas. Building houses FBI.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the plane belonged to Doug Bourn, a senior electrical engineer for Tesla Motors. Although it's unclear whether or not he was on board at the time. As we reported first earlier, two other Tesla employees were in the plane at the time of the crash. Fox Business News reported earlier today Tesla CEO Elon Musk was not on board the plane, and that he's calling this the " worst day in Telsa's history." Later on, he issued a full statement, which can be read here at Wired . . .

EAST PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) -- The three people killed on board a small plane that went down in a Northern California neighborhood were all employees of Tesla Motors Inc. The twin-engine Cessna 310 crashed in a residential area of East Palo Alto on Wednesday morning after hitting some power lines. It had just taken off from Palo Alto Airport in heavy fog.

Evidence has reached debkafile's counter-terror sources that the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 which crashed after takeoff from Beirut on January 25, killing all 92 aboard, was blown up in mid-air. This was an al-Qaeda operation timed for one month to the day after its failed attempt to destroy an American Northwest airliner bound for Detroit. It is becoming clear that either a bomb was planted on the Ethiopian flight with a timer or a passenger acted as suicide bomber. Western security agencies in the Middle East involved in combating al Qaeda believe that its planners picked on the Ethiopian flight...

Evidence has reached debkafile's counter-terror sources that the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 which crashed after takeoff from Beirut on January 25, killing all 92 aboard, was blown up in mid-air. This was an al-Qaeda operation timed for one month to the day after its failed attempt to destroy an American Northwest airliner bound for Detroit. It is becoming clear that either a bomb was planted on the Ethiopian flight with a timer or a passenger acted as suicide bomber. Western security agencies in the Middle East involved in combating al Qaeda believe that its planners picked on the Ethiopian flight...

The pilot of a Nanchang CJ-6A Chinese trainer gives Mesa police an account of the events that led to him crashing the plane into a closed restroom facility at Red Mountain Park after trying to make an emergency landing in the park due to engine failure. Feb. 7, 2010.Ralph Freso, Tribune Crew personnel look over the damage to the CJ-6A trainer aircraft. Feb. 7, 2010. Ralph Freso, Tribune The right wing of the aircraft is sheared off by a light pole fixture in front of the restroom building. Feb. 7, 2010.Ralph Freso, Tribune Crew personnel begin to remove avionics...

The probable cause of the Colgan Air crash that killed 50 people near Buffalo, N.Y., a year ago was the captain's inappropriate response, characterized as "startle and confusion," after the stick shaker was activated, pulling back when he should have pushed forward, the NTSB reported in a hearing on Tuesday. Contributing factors included the crew's failure to monitor airspeed and their violation of the sterile-cockpit rule. In the daylong hearing, which ran past 7 p.m., the board split over the issue of whether or not fatigue was a contributing factor in the accident. Board chairman Deborah Hersman argued that several...

Five people, including two Continental Airlines employees, face up to five years in prison if a French court finds them responsible for the crash of an Air France Concorde supersonic airliner near Paris almost 10 years ago. A four-month trial has begun into the July 25, 2000, crash that killed all 109 people on the airplane and four employees of the hotel the airliner, trailing a tongue of flame, hit when it crashed. The five, along with Continental itself, are charged with involuntary manslaughter. The case centers around investigators' findings that a piece of metal fell from a Continental DC-10...

Washington (CNN) -- Confronted with signs that his plane was entering an aerodynamic stall, the pilot of Continental Flight 3407 pulled on the plane's control column when he should have pushed -- a simple but inexplicable error that led to the death of 50 people, the National Transportation Safety Board ruled Tuesday evening. The board's ruling, coming a year after the crash near Buffalo, New York, is stark in its simplicity.

Here is Raw Video of an Ethiopian Plane taking off from Beirut, Lebanon that crashed after takeoff yesterday. The video shows the faint light of the airliner after it had taken off and then it goes out of the video frame but you see a bright light as if the plane had exploded in the air. No official word has come as to the cause of the disaster that killed 90 people. . . . (VIDEO)

A Navy pilot whose training airplane crashed Saturday in Lake Pontchartrain is presumed dead, and the search has shifted from a rescue to a recovery mission, a Navy spokesman said Monday. As of Monday afternoon, the Coast Guard was still searching for the pilot, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Jaclyn Young in New Orleans. Navy Lt. Clinton Wermers, 33, a native of Mitchell, S.D., was an instructor pilot aboard a T-34C Turbomentor airplane that also carried a Navy student aviator who survived the crash, Navy spokesman Jay Cope said Monday. The aviators were assigned to Training Squadron Six, based at...

AN AIRCRAFT that crashed minutes after taking off in a thunderstorm, killing all 90 people on board, is thought to have been struck by lightning. The Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 had just left Beirut in Lebanon for the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa when it burst into a "ball of fire" and plunged into the Mediterranean. There were two Britons among the 83 passengers on board. One of them was named as haulage firm owner Afif Krisht, 56, who had dual British-Lebanese nationality, and whose former wife lives in Plymouth. Flight ET-409 crashed into the sea two miles offshore. It disappeared...

An Ethiopian Airliner with 90 passengers on board has crashed in the Mediterranean Sea just off the coast of Lebanon. The plane took off from Beirut and was headed to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia when is crashed shortly after takeoff. The BBC reports 21 bodies have been recovered, and there are no reports of survivors: The Boeing 737 bound for Addis Ababa in Ethiopia fell into the Mediterranean in a ball of fire with 90 people on board. The Foreign Office said one British national and one with dual nationality were on board Flight ET409. No further details about the...

An Ethiopian airliner with 90 people aboard crashed into the Mediterranean Sea minutes after takeoff from Lebanon early Monday, authorities said. The Lebanese army and the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon were scouring the area off the Lebanese coast where the Boeing aircraft was thought to have gone down. Rescue crews had not found the wreckage, said Ghazi El Aridi, Lebanon's minister of public works and transportation. The plane left Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut at 2:27 a.m. and was headed to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. It disappeared from radar a few minutes after takeoff, El Aridi said....

BEIRUT, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Rescue workers have located the crash site of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that went down just off the Lebanese coast on Monday, Lebanon's Transport Minister Ghazi al-Aridi said. "(The crash) site has been identified three-and-a-half km (two miles) west of the (coastal) village of Na'ameh," Aridi told reporters at Beirut international airport. He said search and rescue operations were under way but refused to give any further details. He also said it was too early to say what caused the crash but confirmed the plane took off from Beirut international airport in stormy weather

An Ethiopian Airliner with 92 passengers and crew on board has crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after takeoff from Beirut airport in Lebanon. Aviation sources said flight 409 was heading for the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa when it crashed at 2:30 a.m. (1230 GMT) on Monday. According to Lebanon's Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi, the Boeing 737-800 disappeared from radar screens only five minutes after takeoff amid heavy rains and storms, and crashed into the sea about 12km (7 miles) south of the Rafiq Hariri airport. Witnesses who live near the coast have reported seeing a ball of fire as...

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