The plane auger-ed in under full thrust. If it were shot down, it would not be so, and the plane would likely not have been in one piece. Finally, a theory that fully explains the reports that a one-ton section of the engine was found over a mile away and other light debris was found scattered over eight miles away! I have no doubt that Sec. Rumsfeld (whom I respect greatly) misspoke, the question is whether his misstatement was in fact a rare revelation of the truth.
that mirror is a load of crap!!! the engine is the easiest to explain... violent movements during the takeover took the plane OUTSIDE of the DESIGN ENVELOPE and one of the engines snapped off.
a four engine plane can fly a long time on three engines, any fighter pilot worth his salt would put a load of 20mm through the cockpit windows and put it down right then and there!!! anything else found on the ground is nothing more than the plane shedding lost skin etc. and could be smoking/on fire from the engine being ripped off the plane.
The light stuff is easy enough to explain from the resulting geyser of debris that would have shot up and down range. It might even explain how a one ton engine part, (has to be the compressor) could have been ejected from that impact point with far more force than a 18" battle gun. (eight miles would be a light charge)
One of our air to air missiles would have taken the entire engine and part of the wing.the plane would have fallen at no more than about 300mph.
The plane hit at a very high rate of speed. Something a damaged plane with a missing engine could not possible have done. And there was no indication from passengers that anything like that occurred. Also, if we had shot it down, don't you think that we would have acknowledged it since orders had been given to do exactly that.
In point of fact, we actually failed to shoot it down before it crashed and the defense dept. got criticized for that as well.