You're speculating as much as any one else, -- seeing that the FBI eyewitness accounts are all fouled up. -- No one knows for sure how many eyewitnesses said, or saw, - what. Hundreds are said to have seen the 'streak' in some accounts, and only dozens in others.
Which was at about 7500 feet according to Faret & Wendell (and may well have been thousands of feet lower than that).
Ok, F&W saw a "huge" explosion at 7500', -- check.
The initial event that disabled the 747 took place at about 13,800 feet at about 8:31:12.
Check, there was a 'less huge' explosion [center fuel tank, supposedly] at 13,800'...
The first radio report of the huge fireball explosion was at 8:31:50 - 38 seconds after the initial event.
Some here claim there was 41 second interval between the 'center tank' explosion @13,800' and the 'huge' one at 7500'. -- So? Is this interval critical?
Nobody can concoct a palatable "missile(s) shootdown" scenario with those facts.
If so, -- how does anybody concoct a palatable "center tank explosion" scenario with those same facts? -- Can you tell me?
The conspiracy theorists - and press - jumped to the erroneous conclusion on the night of the disaster that the huge fireball explosion was TWA 800 blowing up at 13,800 feet at 8:31:12. The report of Faret & Wendell and the ATC tape make it obvious that isn't what happened.
Fine. -- You tell all of us what happened. We await your brilliant solution..
Most if not all the streak witnesses saw the same thing but didn't have a reference point with which to estimate the 7500 foot altitude of the huge fireball explosion. Some of the other airborne witnesses estimated that fireball altitude even lower, down to 4,000 feet as I recall.
"Some here claim there was 41 second interval between the 'center tank' explosion @13,800' and the 'huge' one at 7500".
Which is clearly in conflict with the first radio report at 8:31.50 of that fireball explosion.
" . . . there was a 'less huge' explosion [center fuel tank, supposedly] at 13,800'."
Two readily apparent fireballs? I don't believe there were any such witnesses. If you can locate any, please post them here.