[MediaMole]

The problem with a shoulder-fired missile bringing down TWA 800 is twofold. 1st, it was at 16,000 feet, above the service ceiling for MANPADS, second, a shoulder-fired missile would have hit an engine, rather than the fuselage. Additionally, the warhead is very small and kills with shrapnel rather than the blast.

[livius]

It’s possible that it was a bomb, I suppose, although supposedly the traces of bomb residue they found were from an earlier security test.

The initial reports in NY had many people who actually had seen something ascending towards the plane, which doesn’t prove anything in itself and was later explained as fireworks. But the Feds immediately launched teams of people to search the dunes. I read one report, one that was gone literally gone by the later edition of the paper, where they had found a tripod and “launching debris” in the dunes. So it wouldn’t have been a SAM (although that’s what most people thought) but some other kind of missile in that case.

I don’t know. This is all coming from what I remember and who knows what was true in those reports and what was confused and what was suppressed.

[Hulka]

And also the missile is small (about 4’ long), the motor plume would have been burned out long before it reached altitude, that it is flat-finish and non-reflective, but yet people claim to see a 4’ flat-painted missile with no plume from over 5 miles away.

[El Gato]

1st, it was at 16,000 feet, above the service ceiling for MANPADS,

I looked into that at the time. It depends on the MANPAD, some are "advertised" to make it that high, and the published values are more likely to be low rather than high.

As far as hitting an engine goes, yes they would be tracking on the engine. But that doesn't mean they won't miss and/or the proximity fuse set them off such that the blast pattern doesn't shred a fuel or control line in the fuselage, or just cause a rapid depressurization and structural failure. Airliners are not designed to take that sort of thing, like A-10s are.

A-10, flown by Captain Kim "Killer Chick" Campbell. This appears to have been from a SAM warhead, but could have been heavy AAA as well. If was a MANPAD SAM, it did not hit either engine, directly that is, the cowlings and exhaust nozzle took a beating though.

[Spktyr]

One minor correction (though I think it very unlikely that a MANPADS brought it down): MANPADS can lock up and hit aircraft fuselages and have been able to for a while. If the only aspect the missile could see was the fuselage, well, it’s going to go for that. The percentages for a hit go down, but it does work.

They do tend to go for engines, though.