Destin Sandlin notes that while triboluminescence involves the fracture of crystalline structures, he doubts it explains the flashes seen in non-crystalline materials like glass or plastic.

“But the more I started reading, the more I realized that triboluminescence, apparently, is something that happens on solids with crystalline structures. Glass is an amorphous solid. It's not a crystalline structure solid, to my understanding.”

Brett Keane expresses the view that his observation of light during a collision was likely due to the phenomenon of triboluminescence.

“One of the guys that was with was a high school science teacher. And so he ended up having a bit of a look into it, and he thought it was this phenomenon called triboluminescence, which mysteriously, he's like, it's not fully understood, but what we've demonstrated is maybe one of the bigger version”