Plane Crashes into Building in Austin, Texas

i have no idea what visual flight rules are, but shouldn't all pilots be required to file a flight plan before take-off, for security reasons?

No. Are you required to file a driving plan before you get in your car?

Flight plans are for when visibility is low, and pilots can't see the other planes.

equating cars with airplanes just doesn't fly...

They're both privately-owned vehicles operated by a human.

I doubt that filing a flight plan would make the slightest bit of difference when someone is bent on behaving maliciously, in any case.

true.

although... had it been a requirement, he might have been crazy enough to put down something like

DESTINATION: .nearest IRS building because it's payback time!!.

and the tragedy could have been prevented...

Filing a flight plan is pretty meaningless in cases like this one. There's no way a pilot can be forced to actually adhere to the flight plan he/she has filed.

"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."
Joe Stack wrote his life, and he had accomplished a lot. How very tragic, and everybody is happy nobody died. But, there would have been a place for this guy. He just refused to keep on keeping on. Everybody, I'd think, goes thru this phase, of course in differing degrees. We can weather it, anybody can.

Very sad day.

There are people on Facebook calling him a patriot.

What a smear on the lives of actual patriots.

Joe (This was an act of right wing terrorism) Nation

bizarre!!!!!

Oh !!!! On what basis do you assert this was "right wing" ? because he was sore at the IRS ??

That is stooping pretty low in a situation such as this that involves so many obviously unrelated and undisclosed factors.

Mere maudlin - and a bit stupid - posturing, Joe .

What dyslexia said.

twitter is full of the same type thing, people saying, "i don't approve of his methods but he made a lot of valid points about the government and the irs"

yeah, good points that are completely invalidated by the fact that he was a lunatic

it appears from reading the manifesto he was unhappy with all government

Unless the rules have changed in the last couple of years, a flight plan is required only if (1) the destination airport is different from the departure point and/or (2) if an instrument (bad weather) clearance is required. A VFR flight to and from the same airport doesn't require a flight plan.

Not everyone who is "unhappy with the government" (or even the IRS) is "right wing".

It was a stupid and tasteless cheap shot.... mostly stupid.

that's what i was getting at, he seemed to be as mad at the left as the right

like me, an equal opportunity government hater, screw them all

It's a sad story in several dimensions, and, like you I suspect, I don't think any of us knows much about the real resons.

I have said many of the same things he said. But, committing murder makes the man no different from and deserving no more sympathy than 911, Tim McVeigh and the rest of those demented bastards. I don't see where his political leaning got mentioned, except that he claimed all politicians were guilty.

Paaarrrdon meeeee, I guess I have been recently watching, and listening, to too many of those Tea Party participants to be able to distinguish any difference between what they have been saying and his farewell note full of identical rants.

Tea Partiers are proudly on the right, right? And they are about as angry as this jerk was as they yell “Keep your government hands off my Medicare.”

If I was on the right, I wouldn't want the terrorist pilot, or for that matter, the Tea Party, on my side, hence I understand your reluctance to embrace him.

Joe(Also against left wing terrorism which this was not.)Nation

Well, the guy allowed himself to become demented, insane. A lot of very successful people were once homeless. He didn't have to handle his situation like this, trying to kill other people.