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And terrorists don't have the kind of radar guided missiles necessary to blow a 747 out of the sky when it is at 15,000+ feet.

More importantly . . . If a terrorist had any intention of shooting down an eastbound passenger aircraft flying out of JFK International Airport, he would not have bothered doing it at a point where the aircraft would be more than 16,000 feet overhead when he could as easily do it 25-50 miles further west where the aircraft would be flying much lower.

that is true.

that's why I say - it was a bomb of some kind.

More importantly . . . If a terrorist had any intention of shooting down an eastbound passenger aircraft flying out of JFK International Airport, he would not have bothered doing it at a point where the aircraft would be more than 16,000 feet overhead when he could as easily do it 25-50 miles further west where the aircraft would be flying much lower.

TWA-800 was at 13,800 feet when the Initiating Event (whether a missile or a spark in the Center Wing Tank) occured. 13,800 ft, is just at the outside range of several Russian made tripod mounted Ground to Air missiles.

A tripod mounted Mistral MANPAD missile, complete, ready to fire, was found set up and abandoned on a country road in Maryland two years before the TWA-800 disaster:

October 11, 1994 Associated Press report datelined 09/28 23:55 EDT V0009 (1994)
A State bomb squad destroyed a French-made surface to air rocket launcher armed with a live missile and explosives ....along a rural roadside in Westminster, Maryland.

The FBI and NTSB stated that there are no Man portable missiles that are capable of reaching that altitude... this is false. There are many that can.

The French made Mistral Missile is capable of reaching TWA-800s altitude (4-6km range) and is a fire and forget infra-red heat seeker. The Mistral is used in the militaries of 28 nations including several islamic nations. It is only one of several that have the range to reach TWA-800's altitude and still be effective.

The Mistral missile uses a two stage rocket propellant. The first stage ejects the missile from the launcher and spins the missile to provide stability in flight. The sustainer motor accelerates the missile to supersonic speed towards the target. The missile is equipped with an infra-red homing head supplied by SAT and based on an indium arsenide detector array operating in the 3 to 5 micron band of the infra-red spectrum. The missile has a 3kg high explosive warhead loaded with tungsten balls. The warhead is fitted with contact and proximity fuses.

Strangely, the coronor reported many of the bodies of the TWA-800 victims had small metallic balls in them...

The Mistral is a Tier 1 Manpad... but Tier 2 Manpads are also available. A Tier 2 Manpad could easily reach TWA-800 and knock it out of the sky:

Every one of the red dots on the plot is a location where a Tier Two Manpads could launch and hit an aircraft taking no evasive action at ~13,700 feet of altitude traveling at 370 knots.

In addition, at least 11 other airline crews reported missiles or missile like objects in near misses of their flights near Long Island in the months before and after TWA-800.