I'm pretty sure that that smoke is coming from a smokestack. That is the only reasonable explanation since in
Departure Time the plane finally explodes over the Humboldt River between Broker and Algonquin, that smoke is over Port Tudor in Alderney, a great distance away. And it can't be the burning cockpit as that would have plummeted into the water long before it would have been able to reach the other side of Algonquin.