runway. then flip down the runway several times. saw smoke shortly there after billowing from the fuselage. you're looking at the plane to the left of runway 28. no tail on the plane. fuselage practically burned out. we do know those two emergency chutes, you cannot see it but there were two emergency chutes that deployed on the left side of the plane. we've seen pictures of people going down those chutes. we saw pictures of people leave the plane. we know from folks via social media, that there are survivors. we have every reason to believe the overwhelming majority of

folk are okay right now, a former managing director of the ntsb. pete, are you there? >> i am. >> what's going to be the first order of business when that ntsb team arrives in san francisco? >> well, they'll try to bring order to what looks like a pretty chaotic scene. they'll certainly allow the first responders to do their job. and once the site has been secured, and the first respo responders are their, have completed their job, they will go directly into the wreckage to try to get the flight data recorder and the voice recorder. those are clearly the two most important pieces of equipment that they need to get for an

accident like this. >> what would those tell us? >> on a plane like the 777, the data recorder has hundreds of pieces of information. it will tell you precisely what was going on. oftentimes, multiple hits per second. so they will know what this may not was doing. on the voice recorder, it will tell you how the crew was reacting. were they following procedures? were they cooperating with each other? identifying the correct points, identifying what they were supposed to, identifying the check list that's they had completed. >> brian piper, stand by for me. brian piper is an eyewitness. let's listen in to what he saw. >> the spinning action, is that what you saw? >> i didn't see when it actually hit the ground.

i think that's the boom that i heard. i heard a boom. i paused a second, turned around and looked out the window and that's when i saw it tumbling. >> immediately was there smoke or did it take some time to be smoke or fire? >> well, there was dust and then smoldering. not a lot of smoke at first. the plane wasn't on fire. i never saw flames. and i thought they had the fire put out. i would say the first responders showed up about less than five minutes after the plane crashed and they were spraying water all over the plane. >> what is your reaction to having seen this? >> i was in complete shock. i've seen plane crashes before but i've never seen one this big. >> thank you so much for joining us. appreciate you sharing your account of what happened. i can also tell you, we talked to several other witnesses. one woman told me that she didn't see the plane actually crash. but heard the sound, not long

after she said she saw between 50 and 60 people exit the plane. >> it looks like the united night is moving. we'll have josh sort of zoom in on there. the united flight has been out here since the crash. >> i'm sorry. i'm afraid i don't know that. >> can you talk about -- >> that was our kntv affiliate. our bay area affiliate there, and brian piper was an eyewitness. we just heard a little of what he saw. and more importantly, perhaps, what he heard as well. >> pete, are you there? >> yeah. >> i assume you heard what we just heard. we've got these reports that the pilot did not make a distress call before landing this thing. before the crash landing. in less than five minutes, there was this swarm of emergency

personnel. the swarm of fire trucks. and ems folks as well. responding. are there generally that many fire trucks on standby at an airport? >> absolutely. the emergency response folks in our airports, particularly our major international airports, while airplane crashes are very rare, they're trained to respond immediately. the air traffic controllers in the tower probably called out immediately and hit the button. the response emergency response button. these guys were probably moving within 30 seconds after the crash started. they do a great job. one other thing. these aircraft, even though this

looks in tough shape right now, these aircraft have become extremely well [ inaudible ] over the years. not unusual that there are many, many survivors in an accident like this they hold in place even in the toughest of accidents. the interior of the plane is designed with material that, they are very well designed. >> thank you so much. again, folks, we should note here. that at this point, there are a number of very important things that we do not know. first of all, we don't know precisely, officially, howl people were aboard that plane.

we don't know the number of injured. we don't know whether there was anyone injured. nor do we know whether there were any casualties at this point. what we do know is that we saw with our own eyes, we saw a number of people get off that plane using those inflatable slides. my colleague milisl iissa raybe is standing by. >> the plane came in too short for the landing and the tail hit the seaboard. these are preliminary reports. a lot of this information can change. we're also hearing a lot of conflicting information on twitter about the injured. we're told by doug on his tweet who is an "l.a. times" editor thatle injured survivors of the plane crash are at san francisco general hospital. he said many are needing breathing tubes and some are quite seriously hurt.

we also heard from cheryl sandberg that she was supposed to be on this flight. this is what she wrote. she said i'm taking a minute to be thankful and explain what happened. my family, some colleagues and i were originally going to take the asiana flight that just crash handed. we switched to united so we could use mile for my family's tickets. our flights were scheduled to go come in at the same time but we were early and landed 20 minutes before the flight. our friend david is on the flight. we've been hearing from david on twitter. he is encouraging people not to call him. he said that he is all right. he explains that a lot of the passengers were calm and that it reminded him of 9/11. so that is how traumatic this really was for people on board. we are getting some updates from ems and fire officials saying about 75 trans ports still. we are not hearing any specific information about the injured or possible fatalities. hopefully we'll hear a little

more about the passengers' conditions when we heard from authorities at a press conference coming up from san francisco in a little while. but again, we are hearing very conflicting information about the amount of casualties -- theal of injuries, i should say. we're not hearing any specific information about casualties. hopefully it will stay that way. >> thank you so much. >> and again, folks, we did hear very briefly about ten minutes ago from the public information officer at san francisco international airport. they promised another news conference in about an hour. we're also waiting to hear something official from the national transportation safety board as well. they have obviously deployed a scene to this crash. about ten minutes ago, we did find out that there were people transported. so presumably, there are injuries. we don't know the sentence of those injuries. we also know that at this point, sfo, that airport, shut down.

no flights being allowed to land. no flights are taking off. flights that were scheduled to land there, those flights have been diverted. we heard about ten minutes ago from the public information office per if you are expecting someone, if you are supposed to be picking up someone at that airport, you should contact the airline. our affiliate in los angeles is reporting that there were 303 people on board that maybe. again, that plane bound from seoul, south korea, asiana flight 214, took off around 4:30 yesterday afternoon. it was scheduled to land around 11:15 this morning. as it approached runway 28, based on some eyewitnesses, based on multiple sources telling nbc news, something happened that caused the may not to come in far too short for its landing. the tail hit the seawall at the airport. these are preliminary reports. they are subject to change.

a source close to the investigation tells nbc news, the pilot, the pilot did not make a distress call prior to landing. it was a routine landing as far as they know. that's according to a source close to the investigation. i want to bring bob hager back into the conversation. bob hager covered transportation, airlines, planes, all things travel for nbc news for decades. bob, i want to talk to you a little about what i just said with regard to that source close to the investigation telling nbc news, the pilot did not make a distress call prior to landing. based on stories like this that you've covered in the past. how common place is that? >> that happens a lot. something suddenly went wrong and the pile is so busy reacting to it or barely has any chance at all to react to it.

the last thing he can do is call the control tower because he has to take immediate action. we have lots of reports about how the nose was high, the tail way down and the tail strikes short of the runway. it is interesting when you look at the charred fuselage there it is basically intact if we have a lot of people who survived this crash, it is going to be due to that. the fuselage held together. and then that blackened area that you see there indicates the fire. but that's something that would have happened after the impact. when the fuel catches fire. and evidently, some minutes between the time that the plane came to rest and the doors were open and the chutes were out. some time had passed before the

fire flashed through to create that ugly scene that you see there. but right now, the major new thing that we're waiting for is some word, did anybody die in this crash? we know there were injuries. reports of people being trangs ported. but we have no idea how many injures and how serious. that's all vital information that we're still waiting on. >> the fire department telling us they've transported 12 patients to area hospitals. they say that san mateo county ems transported 21 patients. that's just according to san mateo and san francisco. so right now doing some quick math. that's 33 roughly 33 transports to area hospitals. we don't know whether those injuries were minor, major, there's so much we don't know. we know this. that at 5:30, there will be a

news conference. the ntsb will be holding a news conference at 5:30. we are going to bring that to you live right here on msnbc. at that point we should learn a little bit more information. again, as we heard just a few moments ago, the bulk of the information probably won't be gleaned until they're able to get those so-called black box recorders off the plane. we use that term, black box recorder. precisely what kind of information do those devices give us? >> well, they're really orange. and there are two. there's the cockpit voice recorder. that simply records the conversation, not the talk over the airwaves to the air traffic controllers. but the private conversation in the cockpit between a pilot and the co-pilot so if this happened suddenly, maybe he said something. maybe he did not. the more valuable recorder would be the flight data recorder.

that just tells you everything about the plane. important in this case, it will have the attitude of the nose up. the precise attitude. so we know when it got in that situation, how far out off the apron of the runway he was when that suddenly pitched up like that. and the danger became real. the flight data record he will be extremely important. since this plane is sitting on the runway, in previous crashes, sometime they've had to dredge it up from hundreds of feet below the water level when planes have crashed in the water. sometimes there have been fears fires that have threatened the safety of the viability of the box. in this case, right there on the runway, they'll be able to recover these pretty soon. that will surely help in this investigation.

>> paul is always standing by for inning and nbc news. are you still with me? >> yes, sir. i am. >> i imagine, are you watching this? are you in front of a television? >> i am not in front of a television at this appointment. i have been until five minutes ago. >> based on what you've seen, and we should point out that a lot of this is conjecture at this point. a lot of it is unfortunely some speculation. based on your years involved in 8 ya aviation. we can see a plane sitting between two runways without a tail on it. it would seem to me that it is amazing that we haven't gotten reports of lots of fatalities based on just what we are looking at. >> i guess it is not cool to

disagree. but as a 777 captain,. >> the air may not is not coming down that quickly. the of the tale against the seawall is what appeared to have happen. even at a low rate of sink is going to look back but not for the people in the aircraft. the seats are designed to take that kind of deceleration. the internal cabin structure is designed to take that kind of deceleration. the cabin staff is trained to reaction immediately without further prompting to get everybody off the airplane. so no, i don't find it surprising at all. >> how fast would that may not have been going? >> probably in able terms about, 145 to 150 miles an hour.

i want to bring in jeff near the san francisco international airport. i understand you and your wife, you heard the crash and then you saw the aftermath. is that right? >> yes, we did. >> what did you hear and then what did you see? >> initially i heard a boom. i heard a boom and i looked out and it was just dust for two to three minutes. and then on the right side of the airplane, maybe about a minute or so later. we started seeing the passengers depart. maybe 30 to 40 seconds later. the air on the right side, the emergency chutes deployed and then we started seeing passengers come out on that side. maybe within three to five minutes, the air maybe had caught fire on the front. after that, everybody was just

running from the plane. >> i know it may have been difficult to see. any idea how many passenger you saw get off that airplane? >> initially maybe, it seemed like i seen about 20 to 30 on the one side. and then once the chutes deployed, it was several coming off. maybe an extra 40 to 50. then it got really bad. that's when the smoke and the dust had taken over. >> when the smoke and dust took over the plane as you say, did it look like all the passengers managed to get off the plane before that happened? or could you tell? >> i couldn't really tell. it was so much smoke. at that time, no, this is a pretty big plane. so i don't think all of them got out right at that time. >> you said you saw people running from the plane after they made it down the chutes? >> yes.

we seen people running from the plane. >> any idea where they went? was there -- >> they were running to the tarmac at the time. where the planes land. it looked like they were running away. trying on get away from the smoke. and the fire. because within a few minutes, the plane had caught on fire. the front. it looked like it was right behind the pilots. where we first saw the initial smoke. at first it was all brown dust from when the plane had hit. >> describe that boom that you heard. again, it was just the one boom, right? >> it was just the one boom. and from what i think happened, after the plane hit the tail hit the seawall, it had come up. it did half a cartwheel. i i think i heard the plane hitting the ground at one time. >> when you saw the folks

running from the plane, you saw those inflatable chutes. when you saw the chutes deploy from both sides of the plane. what was going through your mind? >> i was just hoping that everybody survived the crash. at first, when i first looked out, i thought it was two planes that had wrecked on the runway because it was so much dust out there. as it cleared, we just saw the one plane. my first initial response was i hope everybody got out okay. >> jeff gomez, again, from a nearby hotel. he heard the boom and then saw the aftermath. jeff, we heard from an eyewitness earlier. she indicated she saw this plane get perilously close to another plane on the runway. did you see other planes close to this particular plane when it went up in flame? >> yeah. there was a united 747 on the runway. it looked like he was about ready to depart.

he was right there next to it when he came down. after the may not went down, they just removed that plane from the runway. just a few minutes ago. but it was awfully close. >> it sounds like you still have a pretty good vantage point of runway 28. what do you see right now? by the way, while you're talking, we're showing folks at home one of the pictures that you sent to us. and that is -- that's the most smoke that we've seen so far this afternoon. that smoke is a lot thicker than what we saw earlier. what is the scene right now? >> it is cleared up right now. there are still fire department personnel on the ground that looks like no more buses or ambulances. it is just clear like a regular

day. >> before i let you go, just confirm for us really quickly. we've spent some time talking about the conditions in the san francisco area this afternoon and this morning. the plane was trying land. what was the weather like? >> perfectly clear. i've been here several years. you cannot even see the airport because of the fog. it was a perfectly clear morning. no wind. it was a beautiful morning. >> jeff gomez, we'll leave it there. thank you so much for your time. do appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> paul mccarthy still standing by, an list for msnbc. what do you make of that? >> everything is skiconsistent. >> the flight data record her put together all the information. it will put together where everything was in space and

exactly what that. i would expect with that, we would have the information from the ntsb within 36 hours. so we'll know what that to the airplane because the aircraft is so thoroughly instrumented. >> bob, this boeing 777. this plane that we're looking at right now on the left side of our screens. what can you tell us about this plane? just the boeing 777 in general. >> the 777 in general. tremendous success story. it has been a big seller for boeing. it has had a wonderful safety record. some of the airlines have used it for their longest flights. this aircraft has a very good record. and just judging by what we've heard so far, you would look more at the performance of the crew and thing like that on this

final landing issue. so the airplane itself may still come away from this with a good reputation, at least from a mechanical standpoint. >> for our viewers watching this at home, we should let you know that we are about five minutes away from an ntsb news conference. hopefully at that point we will learn a little more about precisely what that around 11:15 local time there in san francisco. what caused probably, obviously, not what caused this to go down as we just heard from two veteran aviation experts. we won't get that information until two so call black box recorders are retreated. we are fully aware of the social

media about casualties and injuries. we are staying away from those. we are trying to get information confirmed. trying the get official information because we recognize that there may be someone watching who has a loved one on that plane. we want to make sure we get that information right before we pass it along to you. i can tell that you according to kntv, our affiliate in san francisco, kntv, there are two dead. two casualties at this point. we do not have a hard number on the number of injured. but we do know based on a news conference at san francisco international airport, we do know that several dozen people, we do know that a number of people were transported to local hospitals. again at this point, two dead and according to kntv, again, this is according to kntv, our

affiliate, up to 70 people have been hurt. we're working to find out how many people were on board as well. we've heard between 290 and 303, including passengers and crew. again, for folks who might just be joining us, this is an asiana airlines flight we know that it went down as it approached runway 28. >> eyewitnesses in the area, as well. it was by san francisco standards, a beautiful day. at some point, as that plane approach something happen, a source close to the investigation tells nbc news the pilot did not make any distress calls prior to the landing. it was a routine landing as far as they know. we've heard from multiple sources, tell nbc news that according to early indications,

the plane came in too short for landing. and its tail hit the seawall at the airport. these are preliminary reports. they're subject to change. that would jive with the first eyewitness that we heard from about three hours ago who says that she saw that tail clip the seawall and flip several times down the runway on the left side of the screen there, you can see the skid mark on runway 28. you can see what is left of that plane. pieces of the plane also strewn about there on the runway as well. on the right side of the screen. this is some new video that we just got into msnbc. this is video from, this is actually video from one of the planes on the tarmac there at sfo. moments after the crash. and you can see again, smoke billowing there from the boeing 777. we've heard from a number of people. folks who saw it. folks who heard it.

they say they saw a number of people get off that plane and then moments later, they saw the plane engulfed in flames. also hearing from the coast guard. the coast guard in san francisco received a call about the crash around noon asking for assistance. that would be the coast guard there in san francisco. they launched a helicopter to help the coast guard telling us that they took one person to the hospital. and again, according to kntv at this point, at least two people are dead. up to 70 people have been hurried. and we're waiting on an ntsb news conference. this news conference on the right side of the screen. this news conference, i understand, will come from reagan national airport in northern virginia. just outside washington, d.c. of course the ntsb head quartered there. we found out right after this happen that the ntsb, as is

customary srgs deploying a team to san francisco to investigate, to retrieve those two so-called black boxes, which we found out a few moments ago are actually orange boxes. the cockpit voice recorder should tell us a great deal about what that. san francisco general hospital right now. this is one hospital in the area. san francisco general hospital. telling us, that ten people there have been critically injured eight adults, two children. there are a number of hospitals in that area. but again, we're starting to get the trickle of new information as we wait on this ntsb news conference that is expected to happen at any moment. we'll bring it to you live. milissa rehberger has been standing by. i understand you have some new information? >> yes. we are hearing from the

president who remains at camp david this afternoon. he released this following statement about the plane crash today. he said the president has been, the white house says the president has been made aware of the situation and his team will update him as new information becomes available. we will continue to stay in constant contact with our state federal and local partners. >> thank you so much. >> first word from the white house this afternoon as we went on this news conference to start. our affiliate there in the area, the nbc bay area affiliate, kntv saying two are dead. at least 70 are hurt. early reports indicate at least 291 people were on board. we should at least get that information from the news conference, hopefully in a few minutes. witnesses, and again this would jive with an eyewitness that we had on roughly three hours ago. a woman who was nearby in a hotel who saw this thing happen. witnesses telling kntv that they saw the plane flip on

handleding. some are describing the landing as a cartwheel. right now the plane is in a normal position as if it were landing right side up but witnesses say they saw the plane flip on landing. an eyewitness describing it saying i was sitting on my fourth floor, overlooked the runway, saw the plane tumbling. the nose was down. the tail was in the air. it flipped over and landed. i couldn't tell if it was upside down or right side up. what can you add to that in. >> i was going to say, we were talking about this ntsb news that we're waiting for. [ inaudible ] departing. normally in crashes, the investigators, where you really learn things from the investigators, are later on. after they got the black boxes

as we said. after they get into the investigation, they've been able to investigate the wreckage. then the investigators become very important. the immediate news story on the ground, right now it is vital to know how many were killed. how many were injured. how many were injured seriously. that tends to come more from the scene. i don't think when they talk to them at reagan, that they will have that information unless somebody can feed that to them on the scene. i think to get a better picture of the extent of this tragedy, it will await local sources, the ambulance people or airport officials or the airline itself to make some compilation of how many are dead or injured. that is a grimmer turn to hear that one report, two dead and 70

injured. that's a fragment right now when we know there are 300 people on the airplane. so all that is information that's coming. i think it is more apt to come from the scene than from that ntsb report. >> we did get word that two of the runways at san francisco international, two of the runways are going to open shortly. the airport telling folks to check with their airlines for arrivals and departure information. there was a news conference, that ntsb news conference set to start at 5:30 has been pushed back to 6:00. that ntsb news conference will happen at 6:00. this was a very brief news conference in san francisco at the top of the hour. we heard from the pio is what he is called. public information officer for the san francisco international airport. we heard from him at the top of the hour. we'll play that for you. we'll play that back for you right now. take a listen to what he said.

>> i know you don't have numbers on survivors. can you say there are survivors? >> i don't have a down on the status. i do know that peel were removed from the aircraft and transported. the exact status of injured and uninjured, i don't have numbers. >> can you talk about air traffic now and where things are being diverted to? >> i don't know where flights are being diverted to but certainly they have diverted and we are not operating any arrivals and departures and we are working the address that. >>. >> for those people waiting to see their loved ones off that plane, where should they go now? asiana airlines is working out a process for the passengers. if we do get an 800 number that friends and family can use, we will advertise that with you. >> the airport is literally shut down. >> people are coming to pick people up. what are you telling them to do? >> our best advice right now is to check with their airline for

the status of the flight. given that flights may have diverted to other location. >> if somebody was on that particular flight and they're looking for their loved ones. are the airlines calling them? >> asiana airlines is developing a process for that and i'm sorry i don't have the details. >> we're going to meet back here at 3:00 in the same room. >> thank you. >> we should be hearing more from san francisco. that's also about the same time we expect to have that official news conference from the ntsb as well before they deploy their team to the west coast. my colleague milissa rehberger standing by with more. >> we are hearing from kntv, our affiliate in san francisco, that general hospital, the san francisco general hospital, is reporting ten critically injured patients. eight of them adults. two of them children. we have an update from the

airport directly which tweeted, two runways will reopen shortly. please check with your airline for arrival and departure info. so that is good news that there will be some air traffic going to and from the airport fairly soon. >> thank you so much for that. again, when the ntsb arrives on the scene as we just heard from bob hager a short time ago, they will make one of the first orders of business, retrieving those two data recorders as they try to figure out what happened. what went wrong? one of the things that it looks like we can rule out right now, according to tom costello, at this point we're ruling out terrorism. the government doesn't believe this was an act of trifl. they don't believe that this was anything sinister. so that is something we can rule out. also, multiple sources telling nbc news that early indications are that this plane came in too short for landing.

it's tail hit the seawall at the airport. these are preliminary reports. they are sub to change. that would jive with what i heard earlier. she was an eyewitness. she saw this happen and she saw some of the aftermath. i talked to her sometime ago. stephanie turner is with me. i understand that you actually saw this happen? >> yeah, yeah. that's correct. we are staying at the marriott on the waterfront across the water from the runway and we happened to be standing outside of our hotel. when the may not came in. >> what did you see? >> we saw there was a huge jet sitting still on the runway which was what had caught our attention. i think it was the united jet. it was huge and it was kind of siing still on the runway. as we were watching we saw the

asiana flight approaching. and we noticed that the angle was wrong. i'm sure you've heard that from other eyewitnesses. the tail was too low as it was approaching. and i was really worried. the width of the runway. i could not tell whether it was going to hit the other jet directly or, i was very, very nervous. and then the, the plane came in at a bad angle. the tail clipped the runway it did several flips, cartwheeled down the runway. and then when it came to rest, there are flame and smoke just billowing out of the fuselage. >> the plane flipped several times? >> yeah. i mean, it looks like it might have just, when you're looking at images on tv, it kind of looked like it might have just

skidded to a stop but it really went through quite a few acrobatics on the runway. yeah. >> the tail clipped the runway. that's what you saw. >> yeah. it came in at a bad angle. the tail was very low. that seem to be what caused it. >> then after it came to a stop, after it avoided the other aircraft. first of all, how close did it get to the other plane on the runway? >> it is impossible to tell. it went behind it. the other jet that was on the runway was actually between us and the crashing plane. so we couldn't see how close it got. >> did you see the emergency vehicles respond? did you see the response? >> you know, we were very troubled by what we had seen, obviously. so we actually left the scene. we saw the emergency flags come

out. we felt like that was a good sign that there were at least some survivors west just very disturbed. we left as the emergency crew was arriving so we did not see the emergency crews treating the plane. >> you mentioned that as you saw it approach, you said that the angle was wrong. what do you mean by that? just the fact that the tail was too low? or was there something else wrong the plane? >> yeah. the tail was too low instead of coming in flat, it was coming in at i would say a 45-frye angle with the tail far too low. >> the fire that you saw. could you make out where that fire was? >> no, no, i really couldn't. it was coming out. we could see it on the top of the plane but we could not tell where it was originating. >> you saw the chutes come out of the side of the plane.

>> yes, we did. >> you did not see the people that we've since seen come down those chutes. >> no, no. we didn't. >> have you turn on the television since? are you watching now? >> yeah. we're watching now. it appears as though there are a lot of survivors and we're just so relieved. we were sure that we had seen a very serious tragedy so we're very relieved to see reports that it looks like most everybody is okay. >> before i let you go, you mentioned the tail clip. what did you see the wings doing? >> you know, i'm not sure. i mean, we saw the plane rolling quite a bit. i assume the wings had broken off. now seeing photos of the runway, it is clear that did not happen. most of the focus was watching the tail break off.

>> stephanie turner, an eyewitness to this plane crash in san francisco. >> so again, folk, top of the hour, we are expecting to hear from the national transportation safety board. a news conference from the ntsb. at the same time, we are also expecting to hear a little more from the airport there in san francisco. we heard from them at the top of the hour and according to them, they would come back and give us more information. 3:00 their time which would be 6:00 here. meanwhile, we continue to get these dramatic pictures in. some of them from the runway. some of them from a hotel near the airport. this one from brian piper. just some amazing pictures. based on eyewitness accounts, the may not crash handed. at some point shortly there

after, folks were able to get off the plane via the chutes, the chutes deployed on both sides of the plane. this is according to eyewitnesses. minutes after people made it down those shoots, they were running from the plane, according to these eyewitnesses. this was a fire that erupted. you can see what's left of that asiana boeing 777 somewhere on the left side. to the left of runway 28 in san francisco. again, top of the hour. we expect to get some additional information. we can tell you right now, and again, it is important to note this is according to our affiliate. there kntv. kntv. the bay area affiliate. they're citing fire investigators. they're citing emergency personnel on the ground they're saying two peel are dead and up to 70 have been injured.

we heard from san francisco general a short time ago. they say 12 people were taken there. san mateo county ems saying they transported 21 patients. so again, we do know that a number of people were taken to area hospitals at this point. we could not know precisely how many. nor do we know the extent of the injuries. we are getting the report that many are injured critically. according to kntv on the ground there, two people are dead. this was a plane coming from seoul, south korea. it was bound for san francisco it was. set to land around 11:15 this morning. local time. sources tell nbc news, that the pilot, the pilot as he approached, did not make any sort of distress call. by the way, this picture that we're showing you, this is a new

picture that we're getting in. and i'm be exactly sure where this picture is from. the twitter handle, as you can see the top of the picture. again, just really amazing image of this airplane on the runway. you can see what appears to be flames inside the cabin there, if you look closely. you can see the flames inside the metal portion of that cabin. you can see the smoke, the thick plumes of smoke just billowing from that boeing 777. this is the first time we've seen the flames in the cabin. we've heard from a number of people who saw the aftermath, especially they tell us they did see people manage to get away

from the scene. we do know that there are survivors. we saw some pictures. we saw some pictures of that a short time ago. again, some other pictures that we're just starting to get into msnbc of the aftermath. bob, we were talking about this earlier. we were talking about precisely how it is that an airplane now would be able to sustain this kind of damage versus an airplane 20 or 30 years ago. talk about the technological advances or the engineering advances that we've seen an aircraft like this. >> the big impetus for improvements came from noticing often time people were able to survive the impact of a crash.

and then they lost their life or seriously injured in the post crash fire. the aftermath. so when a plane goes in, oftentimes a fire ball does not come instantly. the plane hits the runway or the apron before the runway. it settles in. and it is the friction that started a fire somewhere with the fuel as the fuel begins to mist or maybe a fuel tank is broken open. then the fire builds. and when it gets hot enough, they call it flashing over. and then it just becomes an inferno. eventually as you see from the pictures on the screen, and the pictures of the fuselage, eventually this was a ferocious, ferocious fire. but there was time, evidently, since we've seen there were survivors who were able to, we saw twitter pictures of people

walk away from the aircraft. so people were able to get out so this is been all this research. noticing a big time gap, not a big time gap but moments, where it was possible that people could escape. so there was a huge effort to, a, make the fire, make the materials more fire retardant. the cloth on the walls of the aircraft. that he would slow down delay, the time the fire flashes over. and the other thing was to lessen the impact. the seats were made much stronger. particularly the anchors under the seats that hole they will to the floor of the aircraft. this was not easy for airlines to stomach. it meant adding to the weight of the aircraft. and weight means everything. it makes you use more fuel. makes flying more expensive. but the airlines did it. and the seats, the anchors of

the seats were improved dramatically. and that, too, along with the retardant, enabled to be able too survive the impact. be more likely to to survive th impact than they had been before. so there's been very important in the history of aviation, and maybe particularly vital in this crash itself. >> bob, thank you so much. again, continue to stand by for me if you can. and in the control room, i'd like to bring back that picture that we had up just a few moments ago. this picture that was from a woman whose father was on the plane. this is of the pictures and images that we have seen over the past few hours. this is perhaps the most moving. kntv, i understand, we're going to be able to listen in to some of their coverage as well. kntv, our affiliate in the bay area. let's listen in. >> a lot easier to manage. >> sure. ken smith is with us. we heard the air traffic

communication with the pilot at asiana airlines. and there's an sfo fire diameter right on scene, so response was swift and hopefully effective here. when you see the smoke here as a firefighter, you guys and women come in there with equipment and ready to go. these are passengers that are going to have to inhale all of this. what are the extent of injuries we could see here in terms of what you're seeing? >> in terms of what i'm seeing, again, just looking at it, it almost looks like a calm scenario at this point where the fire was outside of the plane at that particular time in that photo you just had up. from a distance, again, depending on what's burning, if it was sitting down in the dirt, it's possible that, you know, it smoldered a little bit, and the black that you see is mostly going to be fuel if it's on the outside of that plane. if you notice there's no smoke coming out of -- appears to be no smoke coming out of the cockpit area where the slides are. so i would say it was not inside the cabin at that time.

so, you know, again, the way that this plane appears to have landed and where it ended up was definitely a plus for everyone -- or as many people getting off as possible. >> that's amazing insight. because of what you just said, ken smith from sf fire, from his opinion there, the smoke and fire is outside, not inside the plane. that's a big difference, ken, right? if that was inside the plane, this could be a lot worse in terms of fatalities. >> it definitely would have been a different scenario for us, and for anyone. like i said, without any speculation, you know, based on what i see, there don't appear to be, you know, smoke coming out of those doorways at that time. >> ken, what's the response time? we heard the air traffic control talk to the pilot of asiana airlines there. and it seems in less than 60 seconds the fire trucks were there to put out the fire. >> yes.

but usually, if we know that they were having a problem coming in, then those three stations would be alerted. and would be on standby. most airport situations, if it happened -- of course, our response is pretty much the same once we get alerted. we're on scene. we have those big trucks that can pierce the cabin. and we use foam because in most cases, we're dealing with a fuel situation, so we don't want to spread the fire. so that's why foam was being used at the early stages of putting this fire out. >> if i can interrupt here for a moment, if you're near a tv, i can hope -- hopefully you can watch us here on nbc, which would be channel 3 or 11 for you. and that way you can kind of walk us through the video as well. you talk about the foam, and that's what we see now. and we see the fuselage of that plane simply gutted, like someone just ripped the roof right off of it. is that from the fire itself or a combination of you guys

getting in there? >> a combination of us getting in there and -- and i don't have the expertise that the guys have down there because i don't work at the airport. but initially we have a probe that punches into the side of that plane, and can fill that plane up with foam. right now, what you see right now is it appears that they are probably just cooling off, keeping that plane cool. i'm sure that it's still warm. that's why they are doing what they are doing right now. but a lot of what we do is really to suppress the fire as quick as we can go and get in and then evacuate as many people as we did, and then deal with the multiple people that we know we're going to have. this went from a second alarm to our city units coming in from the city, we had at least 45 units out there, 180 personnel out there dealing with this, along with san mateo county. and it looks like they did a

pretty good job in handling the scene as best they could. >> sure. this photo now taken from it looks like milbury right there across the water. again, what do you make of this when you see this? this is about one minute after the crash. >> one minute after the crash, looking at it, definitely the heavy black smoke, which even at the next photo we see that, it's outside the plane. but that dirt that the plane landed in, the dirt area, big cloud of dust. sure, a big plane coming in as fast as it's coming in, but probably created a big dust cloud. and probably the left side of what we see is mostly the dust from the infield that it landed into. >> ken, that's what i was going to say. when i first saw that, that's what i thought it looked like, rather than a ball of flame, although it's orange. it looks more like that's the dust created when it went off the runway into the dirt area short of taxiway f. >> correct. and that's probably -- again, like i said, when you look at

the later photos, the inside of that plane is not on fire. there's no flame, you know, shooting out of the -- you know, in some of the later photos, you see an orange glow i think right around the wing area. but that's probably later. if we're able to evacuate this plane like they say they can evacuate this plane within two or three minutes, i think they were able to get most of the people off that plane, if not all of them. and if the reports of two fatalities, i can't confirm that, i know they are going to have a press conference at 3:00. and i don't want to step on the toes of what they're doing down there. but if that was the case, then everybody got off of this plane. and pretty much the fire itself, we can suppress it to a certain point. we can cool it down until it goes out and smother it. but it's still going to burn that plane down -- burn the plane a little bit. like it is now. so that's going to be something common that will happen.

>> ok. we're going to pause from local coverage there. this is debbie hersman, of course the well-known spokesman, if you will, for the -- chairman rather of the national transportation safety board. let's listen in. >> asiana flight 214 that was originating in seoul, south korea, destined for san francisco. they were coming in on runway 28 left at san francisco international airport, and they crashed on landing. we have a number of investigators who are launching with us here from headquarters. they are being led by investigator in charge bill english. we have a number of subject matter experts who will be leading specific teams. those teams are going to be focused on operations, human performance, survival factors, the airport, airport operations, and they're going to be focusing

on the aircraft, the systems, the structures, and the power plants. we're going to be supported by a number of team members here in washington, d.c. they are in the process of collecting information on air traffic control operations, on weather, and on maintenance issues. they will be able to gather information while the rest of our team is en route to provide us with that information when we land so we can hit the ground running. we have three investigators who are based on the west coast. they are deploying right now to the accident scene to stake it down in advance of our team's arrival from washington. those three investigators are based in the l.a. area, and they should arrive in san francisco in the next couple of hours. i have spoken to add administrator werta.

we are getting good participation from boeing and other participants. we are working now with our counterparts in korea, the korean air and accident investigation board, and we will invite them to serve as a participant in our investigation. we are leaving now. we should arrive in san francisco in just a few hours, and then we will get to work when we arrive. happy to take any questions. >> reporter: at this point, what do you think happened? do you have any sense of that yet? >> the question is at this point what do we think happened. obviously, we have a lot of work to do. as you know, when our teams arrive on scene, they work to collect information. we're certainly going to be looking at the aircraft to try to find the cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders, if they were functioning at the time of the accident we'll be looking to get information from them, as well as document the accident scene. it's still too early for us to tell. we haven't left washington yet. once we have arrive in san francisco, we'll have a lot better sense of what's going on and be able to provide additional information. >> reporter: any chance it was

pilot error? >> are there any other questions? >> reporter: is this a relatively new aircraft? >> the question is, is it this a relatively new aircraft. this is a boeing 777. and i mentioned that boeing will likely be one of the parties to our investigation, and we work very closely with entities who have expertise to bring that to the investigation. the 777 has been around for a while. it carries several hundred passengers. and we'll certainly be looking at everything when we get there. we have not determined what the focus of this investigation is yet. we have to get on scene to really begin to collect the factual information, to do the documentation, and to draw on our experts who will be putting together information while we're en route. one more question. >> reporter: is there any chance it was pilot error? >> the question is, is there any chance that this was pilot error? like i said before, we haven't left washington yet. we still have a lot of work to do. everything is on the table at