Saying the military did is insane. So long as you wander down that course then you're fooling yourself.
Yes Non-Sequitur, we realize you know what every military member was doing on that evening and where every bit of ordinance was. We get it.
“Saying the military did is insane.”
Not necessarily. Who said that it was ‘our’ military???
The exercises being conducted were composed of multi-national forces.
British and Israeli forces had developed protection for their private industry aircraft.
They wanted to prove that their ‘equipped’ passenger craft was protected from SAM’s.
The terrorist middle-east/south american contingent wanted the opposite.
Well, all was OK until the TWA flight took off at the scheduled time for the EL-AL flight, and was on the low end of the flight path. First mistake.
Second, the ‘fake’ terrorists were already on site, out of radio contact, and on their own volition.
They launched and stood by for radio contact.
The Multi-national forces top staffs watched helplessly.
After the missile ‘hit’ the wrong target, the ‘fake’ terrorist launch vessel was recalled from the port position and the multi-national forces were regrouped and prepped for search and recovery operations.
DISCLAIMER:absolutely none of the above is true. ; )