[INVAR]

I don’t buy that spin. Not for a second.

ISIS was shown to have possession of SA-7 AND SA-16 MANPADS - likely from Libya after Ghadaffi was overthrown. They can hit targets at 35,000 feet and the Russian Airbus was at 31,000 when it was shot down.

Also, SA-75 Dvina Soviet MANPAD can hit targets at 82,000 feet.

2K12 Kub / SA-6 Gainful - 45k feet, another Russian design - and some accounts have those being run out of Benghazi to “Syrian rebels”.

[amorphous]

While I still think this was caused by a bomb placed on board, the possibility of a missile isn't totally out of the realm of possibility. However 30,000' is about a mile higher than publicly available data on shoulder launched stinger missile range.

A post made on another thread:

Some variants have a range well over 20,000'.

Airliners can't stay in the air forever. They have to climb to cruising altitude and then descend back down.

For the sake of argument, let's allow for climb or descent rate of 2,000 FPM (Feet Per Minute), and airspeed of 250 MPH (aircraft will cover 4 miles every minute).

This allows a mobile terrorist equipped with one of these newer variants, to check with some web-based flight tracking system like maybe https://flightaware.com/, jump in his car and travel (10 minutes) to a point which intersects the aircraft's flightpath, up to 40 miles from the airport. Btw, the faster the aircraft's airspeed, the further from the airport the attack can take place.

The terrorist then exits the vehicle, acquires and brings down the airliner which would then be 10 minutes out and passing through 20,000' - a relatively slow moving non-evading target for a missile designed to strike a target traveling in excess of 800 mph in some cases.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIM-92_Stinger, 70,000 missiles have been produced.

Theoretically, it could mean the end of "safe" air travel anywhere in the world as we currently enjoy it.

[IYAS9YAS]

I don’t buy that spin. Not for a second.

Okay, the systems you describe also paint an elint signature for anyone around to see. They're not point-and-shoot, they're guided. You're saying no one in the area got ears on that? Russians, Western govts, Israel? No one?

[centurion316]

Also, SA-75 Dvina Soviet MANPAD can hit targets at 82,000 feet.

The SA-75 is not a MANPAD. Do you know what that acronym means? The SA-75 (AKA SA-2) is a high altitude anti aircraft guided missile fired from very sophisticated fixed launching sites. They were deployed to Cuba and used by in NVA in North Vietnam. ISIS does not have this weapon.

I do know a man with a secret decoder ring who can tell us exactly what happened and he doesn't even need to make wild speculation based on things he read from incomplete and inaccurate news accounts.