I was living in the NYC area and the local media were all over this story moments after it happened.
The number of eyewitnesses cannot be discounted so easily. There is also a military pilot who has seen missiles in combat, who was flying that night and testified he saw a missile.
The amount of evidence that is discounted “out of hand” is troublesome.
The fact that you had the FBI and CIA involved in an airline disaster investigation, and that the CIA felt compelled to produce an animated video of an explosion/crash sequence that was comical to anyone who had flown an airplane, made this thing suspicious from the get-go.
See the video at post #35.