No, it can't. In fact, most are quoted as saying they thought it was a flare. Shoulder launched missiles leave a very distinctive corkscrew smoke trail. Larger missiles leave an even more obvious arcing smoke trail. It is all you usually see of the missile as the flame from the rocket motor is relatively small compared to the smoke trail it leaves. The smoke is exhaust from the rocket motor. When the motor burns out, there is no more smoke. Anyone who witnessed a "streak of light" with no smoke was not witnessing a missile.
-- Lisa Perry
"After work on July 17, 1996, I went to our ocean-front summer rental house to have dinner with my wife and one-year-old son before putting him to bed, so I decided to go to the ocean-side deck to enjoy the view. As I walked thought the sliding doors to the deck, a red phosphorescent object in the sky caught my attention. The object was quite high in the sky (about 50 to 60 degrees) and slightly to the west and off-shore of my position. At first it appeared to be moving slowly, almost hanging and descending, and was leaving a white smoke trail. The smoke trail was short, and the top of the smoke trail had a clockwise, parabolic-shaped hook towards the shore. My first reaction was that I was looking at a marine distress flare that had been fired from a boat. I said to myself, someone must be in trouble."
-- Paul Angelides
"Bilodeau and McBride state that on 7-17-96 at 2045 they were at the Moriches Inlet, South Shore, facing south to southeast. Bilodeau and McBride observed a reddish glowing flare ascend skyward from due east, but they could not tell if from land or water. [The] flare was tight, corkscrew shapes, with even but fast speed. [They] did not see what [the] flare struck, but it exploded in air into a large orange fireball. Two large flaming chunks of debris fell from the fireball. Both recall hearing a deep, thunderous rumble during the explosion."
-- Vincent Bilodeau and Joseph McBride
Lots of other eyewitnesses saw similar things, at the same time. Many described the ascending object as a flare or fireworks, something they might be 'familiar' with - but of course these things don't go to 13000 feet and blow up aircraft. So, lets see, a few hundred people from the region coincidentally say they saw a 'flare' launch to blow up an airplane, and really they didn't see anything because they called it a flare... Is that what you think? Clintonesque!