gazaleon

It's actually very possible to capture that with some crude stabilization considering that his aircraft was moving towards the area he was photographing instead of laterally. (You would get a much-more pronounced motion blur of the foreground otherwise)

Just to be sure, I ran the watermarked "original" through FotoForensics:

http://fotoforensics.com/analysis.php?id=847c810d887372384b2...

There's some artifacts around the area but the overall pattern of the noise seems to check out. The EXIF data is also still intact (albeit processed through Photoshop), he'd have to be somewhat committed to forge that as well.

From Wikipedia —

  "Earthquake light is an unusual luminous aerial phenomenon
  that reportedly appears in the sky at or near areas of
  tectonic stress, seismic activity, or volcanic eruptions."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_light

Considering there were reports of seismic activity in the area around the approximate time of the event, it's possible that ionized air promoted formation of sprites and/or ball lightning.