that is still a possibility - someone else's missile. could a terrorist missile with that range have been fired from a boat off the coast?
They would have needed a radar guided missile which means a radar system to aim and lock the missile onto its target. Something like this is not the size of a rowboat. Highly unlikely they had something like that because if they did, we would have seen it used again.
Easily. There were lots of unaccounted for stingers in...drum roll please...Afghanastan at the time. The plane, according to a FR thread, exploded at around 5,500 feet.
There were lots of reasons, including the Atlanta Olympics, why the WH wouldn't want to deal with a major terrorist incident at that time.
Raytheon Electronic Systems FIM-92 Stinger low-altitude surface-to-air missile system family
(FIM-92A) 3,500 m (conversion to 11,483 feet)
(FIM-92B/C) 3,800 m (conversion to 12,467 feet)
IR/UV homing
Warhead: 1 kg HE blast smooth-case fragmentation with time-delay contact fuze
Max speed: M2.2
In April 1990, Raytheon received a US$45.1 million contract to produce 1,383 missiles. In the following year General Dynamics reverted to the sole source supplier. The US Army requirement was for 29,108 FIM-92C Stinger-RMP rounds with last funding for procurement being provided in FY92. In FY92, an upgrade contract was placed to improve the FIM-92A/B/C performance against the latest countermeasures. Known as the FIM-92D Block 1 rounds, modifications were made to the RMP software to see its low-signature targets such as UAVs, cruise missiles and light helicopters in even more cluttered countermeasures environments. A ring-laser gyro roll sensor and a lithium battery are also fitted. First production deliveries were made of the Stinger Block 1 rounds in 1995.
If we had them, who's to say there weren't manpads on the black market in 96?