Not really. A larger missile requires a larger vessel and a complete weapons system. What are you suggesting? An SA-2 on a merchant? That would be a big trick for taking down a single airliner. Why come all the way across the Atlantic to do that when jet routes criss cross the globe? And why the government cover up? As such a missile would be easy to determine? As to your question about where the damage occurred, I've read that Soviet heat seeking missiles are programmed to turn 90 degrees towards the heat source if they overtake it and detonate on impact/proximity, giving them a second chance.
No. Some of them are designed to lead the heat source just before impact. A fuselage hit on an airliner would not occur unless the APU were running, and there is no APU near the area of the damage. MANPADS actually don't work too well against airliners. In all likelihood a 747 would simply lose one engine to such a missile.
A 3,000 ft. zoom climb, wings level, with no pilot, no autopilot, jammed hydraulics, streaming burning fuel from a gaping, assymetrical opening...
At 550 mph that 3000 foot "zoom climb" takes all of 7 seconds. I don't find that strange. A damaged aircraft can do many things. I once watched an E-2C with a cockpit fire (burned through the control cables) porpoise wildly, wings level until it impacted the water.
It also takes all of 7 seconds more to fall back to the initiating altitude of 13,800 feet before falling from there into the ocean... that means that we have to account for that time (14 seconds) in the time line from the initiating event to splash down.
We know exactly when the initiating event occurred and we know within an approximate 4.8 second window (the sweep interval of the radar sweeps) when the plane splashed in to the ocean. The wreckage of the falling plane returned a passive radar blip for just 8 sweeps after the event (a total of 38.4 seconds from first sweep to eighth sweep)... and then disappeared as it fell into the ocean. TWA 800 splashed into the ocean between 38 and 43 seconds after initiating event. There is simply no time to add in 7 seconds of Zoom climb and 7 seconds of fall, a total of 14 seconds (actually the math says 16 seconds) to the record.
We also know the exact locations of the aircraft at the radar sweeps (triangulation of two radars) but not the altitude. From these position markers we can calculate the speed of the aircraft at any point in the trajectory. A Zoom Climb exchanges forward velocity for upward velocity.... which would mean that the plane would appear to slow down in its easterly vector. The calculated speeds between sweeps show the plane DID NOT SLOW DOWN during the first two sweeps when the Zoom Climb was supposed to have taken place.
Since the engines revert to idle when signal from the cockpit is lost (per Boeing), the only source of energy to power the Zoom Climb would be to convert the forward momentum into upward momentum. To achieve the 3200 feet of the CIA's Zoom climb 100% of the forward momentum would have had to have been converted into an upward vector... any less and the plane could not have reached that altitude. In fact, that's the theoretical maximum climb that the available forward momentum could have provided. I think that's how the CIA came up with that altitude because they certainly could not have derived it from the radar record. When the plane reached its peak altitude (all energy is converted) the forward momentum and hence velocity would be ZERO... and the plane would fall straight down into the ocean from that peak... it didn't.
Instead the trajectory between the 13,800 foot altitude of the initiating event and the place where we KNOW the plane splashed in, matches almost exactly the theoretical ideal ballistic fall.
This is why the later NTSB version of the Zoom Climb changed the total gain in altitude to only about 1500 feet... that smaller climb left about 75% of the forward momentum to try to explain why the plane did not fall close to the peak altitude point. The math still doesn't work. It would have splashed in a two to three thousand feet closer to the initiating point than it really did.
Since I made a typo in the original, here is a corrected version of the Swordmaker timeline:---------------------
Let's see if we can construct Asmodeus' oft demanded timeline that our math seems to indicate occurred rather than his wacked out theory.
20:31:00 - Plane flying normally, altitude 13,400 ft., climbing at 33 ft/sec.
20:31:04 - Possible ground-to-air missile launch. Rate of climb accelerates to Mach 2.1.
20:31:07 - Mike Wire notices flare like object rising over house and arcing to left. in the next 8 seconds many more people notice streak, firework, etc.
20:31:10 - Major Fred Meyer sees "meteor like" object flash acorss his field of view.
20:31:12 - ~13,800 ft. - 0 sec. Last transponder return, everything normal, Aircraft climbing at 33 ft./second.
20:31:13 - ~13,840 ft. - ~1 sec. Missile strikes TWA800 on left side at approximately seat row 16-17 transects the passenger cabin spewing partially burned solid rocket fuel (and leaving a red residue on seats in this area), taking out passengers and seats in rows 17-18 and exits aircraft through right side. VDR ends in loud, strange sound. Bright white Ordnance type explosion occurs just after missile exits thin walled cabin. Blast places massive overpressure on nose of aircraft and opens wide gap in side of aircraft. Parts of missile continue on momentum at speed approaching MACH 2 at a vector 190 degrees from north, ejecta from aircraft including seats, passengers, luggage to eventually land in "crosswind blast debris" field. The blast imparts a slightly more eastward vector for the ejecta which combined with the ejecta's already present eastward momentum results in the ejecta coming to rest about 175 degrees from the point of ejection.
20:31:14 - ~13,880 ft. - ~2 sec. 400+ MPH winds acting on the gaping holes in aircraft fuselage causes the "unzip" of the aluminum skin of the nose. Windforce bends the nose up and breaks the "keel" of the fuselage. Signals to control surfaces and engines cease when wires are broken and engines revert to idle. Drag is no longer being counteracted by the thrust of the engines. The plane slows drastically.
20:31:15 - ~13, 900 ft - ~3 sec. Drag pulls the nose up and away from the rest of the fuselage and breaks loose on the right first and falls away to the left where it is still partially attached, twisting the aircraft toward the left and starts to fall pulling the left wing down, changing the vector of lift imparting a strong leftward force on the aircraft. Unbalanced drag toward the left is enormous. This accounts for the sudden leftward change in aircraft vector.
20:31:16:49 - ~13,890 ft - 4.49 sec. First post IE radar return. - The nose swings under and to the right and breaks completely loose and continues on a momentum driven ballistic fall slightly to the right (about 3 degrees) of the original aircraft vector. The noseless aircraft losing both the balance necessary for proper flight AND the thrust of the engines overcoming drag, pitches rapidly up and stalls. it may climb a very small amount during the pitch up before stall.
20:31:17 - ~13,860 ft. - ~5 sec. Gravity's inexorable pull starts the plane on its final trajectory. Drag is slowing the forward velocity and the uncontrolled aircraft is on either a ballistic fall or a somewhat aerodynamic fall.
20:31:21:13 - ~13,500 ft. - 9.13 sec. Second post IE radar return. - Uncontrolled plane pitches and yaws, lift occasionally pulls the plane in different vectors... this time a strong rightward vector. Drag continues to rip and rend the airframe just in front of the wing.
20:31:25:72 - ~12,300 ft. - 13.72 sec. Third post IE radar return. - More gyrations... now vectored back to the right.
20:31:30:37 - ~10,900 ft. - 18.37 sec. Fourth post IE radar return. - Falling steeply now. Much of the forward momentum is gone due to drag. Structural damage is weakening the Center Wing Tank's integrity and wings are no longer as strongly attached to the remaining fuselage.
20:31:32:?? - ~10,050 ft. - ~20 sec. Terminal velocity achieved of ~450 ft./second.
20:31:34:97 - ~9,100 ft. - 22.97 sec. Fifth post IE radar return. Stress is taking its toll on the wingroots. The Center Wing Tank structural members are buckling under the whipping of the plane rolling and pitching. Fuel is now leaking into the area around the Wing roots from the full wing tanks.
20:31:36:?? - ~8,500 ft. - ~24 sec. The aircraft takes a VERY sharp turn to the right (South) and one of the wing's fails, breaking away from the fuselage. The aircraft with only one wing starts to spin rapidly, spewing jet fuel and agitating it into the atmosphere, mixing it with air.
20:31:39:64 - ~7,000 ft. - 27.64 sec. Sixth post IE radar return. - Center Wing Tank explodes from spark caused by MECHANICAL breaking of metal. Volatile air-fuel mix surrounding aircraft ignited into Massive Fireball, Hot fireball begins to RISE, while burning plane falls through bottom of Fireball still spewing liquid fuel which ignites on exit from wingtanks.
8:31:43 - Elmer's "Streak of light" crippled plane appears.
20:31:44:29 - ~4,900 ft. - 32.29 sec. Seventh post IE radar return. - Still falling at 450 ft. per second.
20:31:47 - ~3,680 ft - End of streak - Elmer Asmodeus's mythical "Eyewitness Myth" Explosion of Massive Fireball at 5500-7500 feet.
20:31:48:94 - ~2,800 ft. - 36.94 sec. Eighth post IE radar return. - Shortly after the Flight TWA800 falls below the radar horizon and no further radar returns are received.
20:31:55 - ~43 sec. splashdown.
Total Elapsed time from Initiating Event (the missile strike?) = ~43 seconds. Plus or minus 2 seconds.