Originally Posted by
KaptinK
So, discounting a SAM, as I think is consensus anyway, the other option is a bomb. Seems to me there are three ways to detonate it:
a. pressure/altitude
b. timer
c. remote from the ground.
Now, in order to film this event the camera would have to be extremely close to the flight path.
For a. they'd have had to be directly under the aircraft just as the nominated altitude was reached, possibly needing to know QNH at that point? Implausible.
For b. they'd have had to be directly under the aircraft just as the timer reached its appointed moment. Implausible, given the unpredictability of actual departure time, weather and winds, routing, etc.
For c. they'd have had to be directly under the flight path (how hard is this to predict within a margin of 2-3 miles? I don't know but I'd imagine quite tricky) and known which flight was overhead and had the technology to detonate the bomb remotely from about 6 or 7 miles, which, again, I've read elsewhere is not necessarily easy. For mine, also implausible.
If they can film the explosion at all (which most certainly can't be done with a cell phone and requires either a serious video camera with a 300 mm + telephoto lens, or a telescope), they can handle being up to 10 miles away from the epicenter without significant loss of visual quality.
Getting within 10 miles of the flight path is not a big deal, since it follows predetermined flight points. Timing the explosion is the real challenge, if it's on a timer rather than remotely detonated: their margin of error is +/-2 minutes, tops (if the departure is delayed even for 5 min, the explosion will be too far to film.)