bob hager standing by. bob, are you able to -- >> i am, yeah. that's clearly the tail. that's the tail all right, sure. >> ok. i didn't want to overstep my bounds here. but, again, it looked like -- and the proximity of that tail, it looks like -- >> that pan shot, it's a long way from the aircraft. >> yeah. >> so the plane moves a considerable distance after the tail comes off. >> bob, have you ever seen anything like this? >> oh, yes. no. that sort of pattern, where the plane when it initially hits leaves some vital part, and then skids on down the runway, sure. that's very typical of a crash on landing. >> we should also note here for our viewers, which is probably in terms of vantage point, this is the widest shot we've gotten in several hours. runway 28 l. that's where that aircraft was trying to land essentially. and it crash landed off to the left. and the plane is sitting right now to the left of the runway. you just saw it there. and what bob and i have deduced is the tail of that plane you just saw there a good distance away. but not so far away, bob, from tha

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

bob hager is on the phone with us. good to hear your voice. >> not under these circumstances. >> based on what you're seeing, and based on the, the decades that you spent covering planes, covering plane crashes. what can you tell us? >> i think one thing for people to look at with the images coming from san francisco. you see that huge blackened top of the hull. and you think, how could anybody have gotten out of there alive? but that would have occurred well after the crash as the tail broke off, you get a lot of misting fuel around. that causes the fire. so it is the time between when the plane hit and the fire then later consumed the fuselage. a good amount of time would have gone by. that's why so many people could get out. i think it is crucial right now. to hear official confirmation. we have several tweets from passengers saying they believe everybody got out. that's just crucial to find out was anybody killed, anybody injured? it seems there would be some physical injuries from the turmoil as that plane came to

one other thing, our colleague at nbc news, tom costello and bob hager, an aviation expert and i have talked many times and tom just did a story about more and more of these crashes are survivable. and so i think when you fly, it's very safe and it happens very rarely. in fact, the last time a commercial aviation accident killed people here in america was 2009. but i think it bears in mind, when you are in this situation, do what the flight attendants and pilots tell you to do, strap in, don't take your luggage when the accident happens. because that got in the way of the first responders and i just found that remarkable, that some people even in all of this wanted to take their luggage with them and that could have caused some lives. >> what i found was so telling is that the fire chief said, even with all this training -- he's been doing this for decades, he never expected to have to respond to a deadly plane crash. never expected to do this in his career and in fact that's what he was faced with and he was so proud of everyone involved. >> terrific point. they train for this on a y