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I agree, TWA800 was above the normal range of a shoulder fired missile, but I don't think you can discount the many witnesses whose description so accurately depicted a missile's flight.

I think it was either a lucky shot by a terrorist or an accidental shoot down by our own Navy who was conducting anti-aircraft missile tests in the area. 13,000 ft would be a duck shoot for a ship launched missile and the launch wouldn't be highly visible to witnesses on shore.

The fuel leak (or center fuel tank explosion) scenario just doesn't work for me. You ever try to pour a Coke out your car window at 60 mph? It sprays back along your car, not in a neat column toward the ground. Imagine fuel pouring from an airplane at 200+ mph, no way would you mistake that for a missile coming up from the ground.

The fuel leak (or center fuel tank explosion) scenario just doesn't work for me. You ever try to pour a Coke out your car window at 60 mph?

I don't have the technical expertise to challenge that, but I've seen video of a leaking wing tank on a large airplane. The fuel not only was shooting straight back from the wing, it was more-or-less atomized as it came out, creating a dangerous situation that luckily never came to pass.

An aircraft mechanic who had seen puncture holes in the underside of one of the wings of TWA 800 claimed that those holes matched up very nicely with the rivets on the engine cowling. If the cowling hadn't been properly secured, he opined, it would have flown back and the rivets would have punctured the wing.