I am a pilot. I learned to fly in a Piper PA-28.

These are lightweight aircraft, basically, motorized aluminum box kites. They're designed to carry 4 adults and have a range of a few hundred miles. They're quite safe to fly but built to be as lightweight as possible while still strong. Non-pilots might be surprised to find that your automobile is built much more "solid" than a PA-28 is.

I am also trained in aviation accident investigation. My instructor at the time was the director of aviation safety for NTSB.

The amount of damage to that building is excessive for a Piper Cherokee impact. We're talking about a plane that weight about as much as a small car (ie. a Volkswagen Beetle). When I first saw the photos I thought it must have been a larger aircraft, maybe a large twin (ie. Cessna 414) or a small business jet (Citation 525).

Check out Wikipedia for the articles about the Cessna 150 that crashed into the White House in 1994, or the Cessna 172 that crashed into the high rise building in Tampa in 2002.

In 1994 the only damage to the White House was a small ding on the side of the building. In 2002 the damage was basically restricted to one office. The Cessna 150 is lighter and smaller than a PA-28 (but not much), and the Cessna 172 is almost identical in weight, size, and performance.

The most logical explanation is that the perpetrator of this attack loaded the seats of the aircraft with some kind of explosive devices. Based on the photos from the crash site, some kind of incendiary devices - perhaps large trashcans filled with "homemade napalm."

Pure speculation but there's no way a normally fueled PA-28 with one person inside caused all that destruction.




Starting to see some reports now that Stack's car has been found with a bomb in it.....makes to sense to me too, no way did that plane do the damage it did without being loaded up with something beyond the normal even full tank of gas....


Here's a picture of the aircraft wreckage: [link to www.foxnews.com]
Note the paint is still visible, seems a little odd if the aircraft had been turned into a flying gas tank.

FWIW, the damage to the building looks similar to the results of a car or truck bomb.