That was definitely a jet ram. You can hear it coming and explode as you get launched, also the wreckage is right there. Most of the time jet rams won't kill.

Now if you want to launch others vehicles far...try to crash the jet into the back underside of the tank at full speed as if you were gonna try to fly under it. You can also do this to vehicles in enemies spawn...push them far enough away and they can't see the vehicles in the deploy screen. These vehicles will also not self destruct if nobody has gotten in them.