No bomb. The plane was too low, and when landing, the tail apparently hit the embankment just at the edge of the bay, thus the 'pop' sound.
The plane didn't 'cartwheel', like the landing in Sioux City, all those years ago. According to a witness on the ground, the plane hit the ground too hard, I guess the landing gear snapped, and the plane slid, spinning around, on it's belly, as it did so. When it came to a stop, the fire began. Amazing that ONLY two people died.
The little small piece of debris is the water is the tail skid, deploys with the landing gear. Designed to keep the tail section of the fuselage from striking the ground from over rotation on take off and too high of a nose attitude during landing. It struck the edge of the rock jetty and ripped the fuselage off at the rear pressure bulkhead which is the strongest point of the back of the fuselage.
Would have made one hell of a “bang” and would have looked like an explosion to a casual observer on the ground.
Pilot error, too low of an approach, quite possible from pilot fatigue as a result of long international flight.
Pilot will soon be flying paper airplanes.
You are correct. It was a low landing and the fireworks were the result of aluminum getting hot as it rubbed on the landing strip.