You’ve touched on something that immediately struck me. If this isn’t just a case of something being inflated beyond what it actually was - namely, that the guy was recording “the entire flight” - then it does appear that he was expecting it to happen. If he was in on it, I’m struck by the possibility that he was a second Al Qaeda operative, sent (possibly without the knowledge of the bomber) to document the events because the bomber was given materials that were expected to malfunction, thus suggesting that what they wanted was to determine things such as how long it would take to make the device functional and detonate it, whether it would be detected, what any passenger/crew reaction would be, etc., as intel for future similar operations. Clearly, this information would be unavailable to them had the bomber succeeded.
Airlines and airports need to step up to Vegas style levels of observation.
Biometrics are used to match faces of people entering the casinos against known card cheats (which are then faxed out to other casinos to put them on alert).
They also look for persons at the games using radio technologies, partners, and small card counters.
Our nation’s hotels used to have private detectives on staff to make sure things going on in the hotel were on the up and up. Now we don’t even want to have a trained observer on EVERY flight monitoring the passengers for unusual activity.
You may be onto something. That would explain the video, and it would also answer the question: Why did the bomber wait until the plane was almost landed? That seemed strange that he was instructed not to detonate until the plane was over Detroit.