Can "plane" (aeroplane) be used as a non-count noun?

I'd appreciate it if someone would answer my question concerning the following sentence. Thank you.

Many times, planes would crash after they had already started their flight home, most often from damage and mechanical failure. In an interview, V. C. talks about how he witnessed a plane blow up right in front of him, just before landing. He said “they all dropped the bombs in the Adriatic, you know, before they landed. They had to clean off the field before we could land anyway, because there was plane scattered all over.”

(My emphasis)

How is it right to use plane without an article? How can it be a non-count noun?

Solution 1:

Yes, "plane" can be used this way. The idea of a clear division between "count nouns" and "non-count nouns" is a simplification.

Any (or almost any) "count" noun X can be used non-countably to express "pieces of X" or "the substance that X is made of". It isn't a special property of the word "plane": you could likewise say things like

After the explosion in the car/cell phone/computer/robot/ factory, there was car/cell phone/computer/robot scattered all over

This usage tends to sound slangy.