we sawed i-report and someone who was driving in to work. popped the camera on the cell phone, right? >> yeah. >> and took some amazing pictures all of of the smoke billowing, just pouring out of the building. and this shot here you just saw a moment ago, i guess it's pretty well framed up now of what looks like the wreckage of the aircraft that was deli deliberately -- can you believe it -- crashed into that building? i know you have new information, i'm turning it over to you, my friend. thank you, tony. we'll start by telling you what we knew. we're bringing you live pictures from austin, texas. a small plane, a cirrus sr-22, a single-engine aircraft has crashed into a seven-story building. two have been taken to a hospital. one is unaccounted for. moments ago we heard from a federal source who told us the pilot apparently crashed into the building intentionally. we're also hearing that the pilot had burned down his house, his austin house, earlier, and may have stolen the plane. we're still getting a good deal of conflicting information on that. take a look. the office building is next to austin's fbi headquarters. it's located in a complex on the 9400 block of research boulevard in the northwest part of austin, for those of you who are people with it. research boulevard and mopac expressway. the building is near a busy highway. the mopac expressway. plenty of witnesses saw this happen. we're getting stunning images from our i-reporters. we, of course, are going through them all and will continue to bring them to you. but look at the amount of smoke continuing to billow out of that building after the plane flew into it. firefighters say there is a great deal of damage. i'm going to -- i'm going to talk to a retired commercial pilot on the phone with me, jim tillman is in scottsdale, arizona, he is a retired pilot, flown commercially. jim, i want to ask you about -- if you can fly a commercial plane, you have to fly a single-engine plane. the cirrus sr-22 very stable, doesn't fly into buildings. >> that's correct. it seems for whatever reason the pilot wanted to hit that building. i say that building, why that one? the fact is it's as if it was a target. he flew into it and that's what he wanted to do and that's what he did. >> we're seeing -- i don't know if you're seeing the same pictures we're seeing. but a great deal of smoke coming out of this building. does it strike you -- that's the fuel from the plane that has created those -- those flames and that fire. >> actually, there are a couple of things that really puzzle me. one, why in the world would he do it, obviously. another thing is why all of that damage? that's a great deal of damage from -- from the small amount of fuel that would be on board an airplane like that. >> uh-huh. >> i've seen a number of crashes, small aircraft hitting structures on the ground, i don't remember ever seeing that much damage. >> we saw one just yesterday in east palo alto, california, and they all look very typical, the unusual thing is the amount of smoke and damage coming out of this building. let's bring in jeanne meserve, our national security expert. she's in d.c. right now. jeanne, you've been in contact with homeland security officials. a great deal of developments. bring us up to speed for anybody who has not heard so far, walk us through this. >> i think everybody is trying to come up to speed on this story. there's a lot of information out there, some of it not completely verified, single source. this is what we heard from one federal source, that this individual had indeed set a house on fire before he took off on this airplane. the department of homeland security has modified its initial remarks in light of the new information that's been coming in. they now say at this time we have no reason to believe there is a nexus to terrorist activity. but they don't talk about criminal activity, which they did in a previous statement. they say, we continue to gather more information and are aware there is additional information about the pilot's history. that's the information we're all trying to get our arm's around right now. i should say that we spoke earlier with an fbi official who said there was absolutely no indication that they were a target, although they have offices nearby. >> next door. this is what has caused a lot of people -- >> that's right. >> jeanne, stay with me. >> sure. >> and, jim, stay with me. i want to bring you up to speed on a couple of things we don't know and are trying to find out. we have all kinds of information on what kind of aircraft it was, we had someone tweet me and said it was a cessna and now we have information it was a peopler cherokee. but we have information that it is a cirrus sr-22. we do believe it was a single-engine aircraft. jim tillman, who is on with me and is a retired commercial pilot is a little surprised by the amount of damage and moak and fire that a single aircraft -- a single-engine aircraft might cause, given that the fuel is in the wings and the wings are not very big. the crash happened at 10:00 central time, 11:00 eastern, and we do know that a man who federal authorities have told us was the pilot of the plane also set his house on fire before taking off. it took off from the georgetown airport, which is in austin, texas. now, let me just ask you, jeanne, we also understand from northcom that they did, as soon as they heard about this, scramble jets out of houston. tell me what you know about that. >> they did. mike mount, who is our producer at the pentagon, said they launched two f-16s out of ellington field in houston out of this crash. that was precautionary. that was a precaution because they did not know what it entailed, what it was about. whether or not it might be terrorist related, but as we say, dhs at this point saying no indication that that's the case, al? >> we also understand a flight plan was not filed. jim tillman, everybody does not have to file a flight plan when they take off in a planle. >> absolutely. if they are going from one place to another, if they don't have to have flight filing, they generally don't file. >> tell me something else, jim, for people who don't know who have never flown a plane, explain to me how in a commercial plane like that, it generally goes where you tell it to go. it doesn't sort of do its own thing unless you lose control of the plane. >> no. and this -- from everything we've heard from the eyewitnesss, the airplane was flying in what's considered to be controlled flight. he was able to turn the airplane, everything else. why was he that low? why was he flying at that altitude if he didn't have something in mind which was not very good? >> he was about 15 miles out from the airport, so there's no reason to below that close to a seven-story building. >> absolutely not. and from some eyewitnesss, claimed that he overflew a retaining wall and this and that and then almost dived into the side of that building. you know, it's -- it's -- i don't know whether the guy had some terrorist ties or not, i'm not -- that's above my pay grade, but i can tell you, it certainly was a suicidal move, for whatever reason. >> jim tillman, thanks your expertise in bringing us up to speed on what's going on. you're looking at live pictures at a building in the 9400 block of research boulevard. our entire team is following this and other developments. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] the cadillac cts sport sedan. one of car & driver's 10 best for the third year in a row. ♪ and now, cadillac announces the new luxury collection lease. sir? 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i'll talk you through it. it's an airport spokeswoman we got some sound from earlier, what is happening now they are not allowed to let anyone leave obviously. there are investigators on the scene, including federal investigators trying to find out where the note came from, how it same to be about. our local affiliate, ksl, said there were 193 passengers on board that flight, and, again, if you're someone who's concerned, if you're traveling today, you want to check on how someone is in that plane, it's united airlines flight 741. it's a boeing 757, it was taken off from denver, and it was en route to san francisco, and it has been diverted to salt lake city. and satisfy ge and, again, ali, it is because a threatening note was on board. and the way ksl said, it was a note on board, but as we know, everyone on board is fine. >> josh, we'll stay on top of it. as of right now, we believed two matters are unrelated as far as we know. i want to tell you what the faa has told us about the pilot of the other plane that went into the building in -- in austin. the statement from the department of homeland security says -- i'm sorry, this is from the department of homeland security. it says, "we continue to gather more information, are aware that there is additional information about the pilot's history. at this time we are referring further questions to local authorities and the faa." the further information that they are referring to is the fact that they believe the person flying the plane also owned a home that he set fire to this morning before taking off in this plane, which has flown into a building in northwestern -- in northwest austin, texas. let's go to john king, not cnn's john king, but a john king in south -- in san diego, who is flight instructor. john, are you with us on the phone? >> i am, ali. >> john, tell me what you know, as a flight instructor. again, we do not have confirmation on what type of plane this is. there are conflicting reports as to whether it was a cirrus sr-22 or a piper pa-28. we will continue to check in to this, but it does -- we are getting a lot of reports that it was a single-engine plane that went into this building. tell us what we need to know about this type of plane. >> well, if you're flying an airplane, it's going to be at a lethal speed, if you do decide, and we'll assume that this is a suicide attempt, there's a certain way to do it, but it's a very unfortunate way, because it puts other people at risk. i wish he had chosen some other method of doing this. but it's a certain way to commit suicide in almost any airplane. so, it really doesn't matter too much. the thing about these airplanes is they have very small inertia and very little energy involved, so they're really not likely to cause much damage. >> right. and this is -- okay, so very little energy involved. the energy is the speed and the fact that there is fuel in the wing. he was just at an airport. he had just taken off, we understand, from georgetown airport in austin, which means he would have been full of fuel. how much fuel might we be talking about in a single-engine aircraft? >> somewhere between 50 and 90 gallons in that airplane. weighs about the same amount as an suv. >> okay. you've seen the pictures we're showing on tv about the burn coming out of that building? >> i have, yes. >> does that seem consistent with 50 to 90 gallons of fuel and setting on fire things on fire inside the building? >> and maybe some things got set on fire in the building. it doesn't seem to be it was a huge conflagration. i wish he had chosen another way of doing this. >> i think the building is 100 feet off the ground or something like that. there would be no reason at all for a single-engine flight to be anywhere near that height. >> no, we'll say it's a seven-story building, that's 70 feet of altitude. no one is flying at 70 feet. this is clearly an unusual situation. >> where do small planes level off? once they take off from airports, where do they ascend to before they start, you know, flying level? >> in an area like this, you have to be at least 1,000 above of anything in the nearby radius of just to be safe above the ground. so, a minimum of 1,000 feet. honestly, he should be 3,000 to 4,000 feet. >> there were people -- there are a lot of reports coming in. we don't know what we don't know. but there were people who sounded like it was coming in from full throttle. would anybody outside know that from a small plane? would you know the difference? >> i certainly wouldn't be able as a flight instructor on the ground to be able to know if the plane was coming in at full throttle. you could make a judgment as the speed it was moving. >> but generally speaking in a plane like that if you haven't lost control of flight, meaning you haven't lost lift or it's not in a spin or a spiral dive, it's not common that it would be out of your control yet flying directly into a building? >> no. the -- you might be making a maneuver and lose lift on the wings because you stalled the wings, but that's not what was happening here. this airplane came in at high speed. it was deliberate. >> let's look at a couple possibilities. let's say you lose lift on a plane, a trained pilot would know that if you lose lift on a plane, you actually have to point your nose downward to regain that lift. is that a possibility? >> that's correct. but let's assume that you weren't flying low to begin with, you would have plenty of room, that's the reason for the 1,000 foot of minimum altitude is give you plenty of room to recover. >> he'd have 900 feet to fix the problem. >> absolutely. there's no reason why a person would be at that altitude unless they are doing some kind of deliberate misbehavior. >> let's do problem number two. he lost power. >> you put it in a good glide speed which is much slower than your cruise speed and look for a place to land and it gives you time to land. so are you would be going much slower if you lost power. >> i don't know the area, what it would be like a pilot in austin, but if he's 15 miles from an airport, he could swing around and find a place less occupied than the office park. >> even if you lost power, you are still under control of the airplane. no reason to hit a seven-story building. >> option number three. something happened to him. was not conscious. >> that is a possibility. it's pretty unlikely. i don't know how old this person was. but that's a rare likelihood, but possible, that he lost consciousness and lost control of the airplane that way and flew into something. >> the only reason we're exploring these possibilities because we don't have more detail now. there is obviously detail that comes in that says the person that federal authorities believe flew this plane into the bulling was also somebody who burned their house in -- in austin, before getting on this plane, so, clearly, that comply things a little bit. we're getting this information through jeanne meserve in large part and her colleagues in d.c. jeanne is back with us on the plane. so, jeanne, department of homeland security officials are saying that they -- they -- they think now there might be criminal activity here? okay. we do not have jeanne just now. let's go back -- we're taking a look now. these are live pictures. this is affiliate coverage coming in from kvue in austin about this plane crash in -- in northwest austin. let's listen in to what they are reporting. >> the degree. >> this is apparently wreckage from the plane. >> in the road. >> we're being told. some people describe the hole in the building to be a 30 feet by 40 feet deep. we don't know exactly how far that piece of metal is outside that building. >> we do have a clarification from a news photographer on the scene who says it's not the entire building that in danger of collapsing, but one particular floor. nevertheless, a floor collapses, that's going to send more debris spewing from the building, so as a precaution, that area is being cleared. folks who are just kind of watching and waiting are being asked to move back. not the entire building is in danger of collapsing, but a particular floor. >> we just don't know how stable the whole interior is. in any case, let's take a -- a producer was trying to tell me something. where are we going now? tyler in the newsroom, tyler, in the newsroom, what do you have for us? hi? >> melissa, we are continuing to follow the trail here of andrew joseph -- all right, let's go to jeanne meserve, she is in washington, d.c. jeanne, what have we got about who this pilot might be and what might have been behind this -- this activity? >> well, still a lot of questions outstanding, ali, we do have a name, joseph andrew stack, this from a federal law enforcement official. according to this official they do believe it was his house that was set on fire this morning before this plane took off. as to the plane, there was a little confusion at first, this official concedes. initially they thought it might have been stolen. now they believe this plane belonged to him. he is known to own a piper cherokee pa-28, so we think that the aircraft involved here. let me see. he said at this point they don't have any history on this individual. and this law enforcement official, at least, was not aware of this individual having any grudge against anybody who might have had an office in that building. we should also say that the ntsb, the national transportation safety board is dista dispatching a team, the lead investigators is coming out of