We know that the Standing Flows existed in the AOL, which allowed normal people to use ter'angreal. According to the BWB, Jo-cars, Sho-wings and Hoverflies were all powered by the One Power which was propagated via energy dispersion devices, allowing an ter'angreal to function without direct activation by a channeler.

Moghedien was a double agent working in Lews Therin's cabinet in a middle-ranking job. When she was discovered she narrowly escaped, but she caused a diversion by sabotaging a public transport network, which killed thousands.

Now apparently sho-wings could carry hundreds of passengers, much like modern aircraft. Rand has a dream of a sho-wing falling from the sky, sending hundreds to their deaths.

So maybe it went like this...

Moghedien was discovered and made a run for it. Half the city was probably after her, and maybe even Lews Therin himself, considering a high-ranking Forsaken was in his own cabinet. Finding it difficult to escape, she sabotaged the Standing Flows. Everything in the relevant radius suddenly stopped working, from cars to toasters, to sho-wings. Thousands of people die as their planes fall from the sky onto the city of Paaren Disen. Lews Therin remembers his shock and horror at what he saw. Moghedien uses this 9/11 terror and hysteria to escape.

It may have been one of the first great atrocities of the War of Power.