Works of journalism and eye-witness estimates of separation should be treated with the same absolute disdain. Quotes from un-named "witnesses" who were "waiting for an explosion" are invariably made up.
It's not that journalists almost always get aviation wrong, it's just that they almost always get everything wrong. Sometimes it's deliberate fraud, other times its sheer lazy, incompetent, pig-ignorance.
This is not a rant, simply a statement.
Anyone know what separation was in this case?