Most airliners have a skid on the tail to minimise damage should it have a tail strike. Unless it was stalling I doubt it would crash and burn.

Not sure about the skid theory. A lot of airliners have a device on the bottom of the rear fuselage to indicate if there has been a strike. But they give very little, if any, protection. The MD11 has no such device.
Time will tell how badly damaged this aircraft is and whether or no it is repaired. Personally I hope it is as it was was the second MD11 that I flew in (unfortunatly I don’t remember the registration of the first one).