plowed into the building, blew out the windows and there are no reports at this point of how many people might have been injured or killed. again, a pretty big mystery underway with this, an accident, was was this an accident, was it a terror attack? we don t know. jamie: and just to give you context for people who may know the area, it s northwest austin, it did, as you said, happen approximately 10:00 a.m. local, and as you said, smoke could be seen, and it s happening near mopac and highway 183, where now traffic is being diverted. there was another report also in texas about a train derailment earlier that might have had some chemical issues. we re not hearing anything about danger in the area from this fire, from this smoke that might cause evacuations beyond the immediate area, but as a precautionary measure, they are diverting traffic around this area at this time as they try to get what is now being reported as a 2-alarm fire under control, but the smoke continues to billow
eyewitness to this plane crash this morning. thank you very much for joining us this morning. once again, some amazing eyewitness accounts of what exactly happened here this morning at 183 and mopac. and for now, we re going to continue. we ve just heard that the fire department will be giving us an update here at this location, here in just about 20 or so minutes. but we ll send it back to you. matt, since you re out there, talk about what the scene looked like when you first arrived. what traffic is like out there right now for folks in that area. reporter: you bet. i brought our live truck up here from the station coming from south to north. and if anybody has taken the 183 on-ramp, they know what a large on-ramp that is over there. and i was coming across and i could see smoke for miles, coming north this morning. and when i pulled up, i could see flames actively shooting out of mainly the second floor of this building, this echelon building here. we saw the building basically
gone and on fire. that is according to some information they are receiving from witnesses. and there are four separate fires reportedly burning in the building. some 50 to 100 people are said to be outside and watching this. let s listen into the local affiliate there. reporter: if you can hear us, tell us the latest. all right. i know matt s there because i can hear him. so when we have matt established, let me know. as you can imagine, just a crazy scene. and he s continuing to gather information for us. what s that? yeah, that s the latest picture you re looking at right there. reporter: i want to show you the scene. this is a very chaotic scene right here at mopac and 183. take a look at this building back here. this is what we understand to be the echelon building. and there has been a plane that has crashed into this building here earlier this morning. this is at the corner of mopack and 183.
a small plane has crashed into a commercial building in austin, texas. at one point, fire officials were calling back members of the fire department. they were concerned about the structure itself. a gaping hole in the side or the front of this building. it s at highway 183 in north austin. let me send it over to my colleague, contessa brewer. she continues our coverage. the big headline coming out of this in terms of the people involved is that two people remain unaccounted for at this hour, approaching noon here on the east coast, 9:00 a.m. out west. we re following breaking news out of austin, texas. kxan over the scene now, showing some of the video coming in. an office building right next to 183 and near the north mopac expressway has been hit by a small plane. the building has erupted in flames. in fact, we re told several stories of this seven-story building are fully engulfed in flames. you can see the black smoke from