“Maybe only a few of them actually detonated and the press is smokin it up as usual... “
I think they gang-fired, the reports say that the bag was pierced and a ramp rat’s shoe was peppered with primers.
They can gang-fire, that’s why they are sold the way they are.
This jeenyus took them out of the box and trays and had them all bunched up. The gang-fire lit a shirt on fire (at least it was smoldering), so if this had happened in flight it may have been a “concern”.
On another thread some of us were joking about how hard it is to set primers off but more knowledgeable people pointed out that they can flake off primer material, which can collect in a pile and be more sensitive. Static can set them off, too.
I played with them quite a bit though and they are relatively hard to set off from my experience. It takes more than a few attempts with a hard heel on a cowboy boot to do it, I would never have guessed they could set each other off with the exception of a few maybe back-to-backs in the same bundle, but never a chain reaction... so I stand corrected.
I was pretty dumb when I was a kid, but not quite enough to try putting a bunch of them in a sack and whack it with a rock. The very small amount of charge that is in them is surprisingly strong and Dad wouldn't have been pleased if enough came up missing and he noticed.