The blaze could be seen in the night sky for miles around, with flamesshooting "400, 500 feet in the air, " said Tennessee Emergency Management spokesman Donnie Smith.
American holiday travelers, waiting in gridlocked airport security lines, absorbing news about six-foot flamesshooting from the suicide pants of a jihadi inbound for Detroit, were initially left to ponder the alternative universe of the absentee president and Homeland Security Secretary Janet "the-system-worked" Napolitano.