Most MANPAD systems have a maximum engagement altitude of just under 10,000 feet, so you forget about a Stinger or Russian MANPAD system taking down TWA Flight 800. But there is one air defense system reasonably portable enough to do the job: the 9M33 (SA-8 Gecko) missile.
From middle 1980's on, the Soviets sold many 9K33M3 mobile SAM systems to a number of countries in the Middle East. With a maximum rang of 9.3 miles and capable to engaging targets as high as 40,000 feet, the 9K33M3 was potentially a formidable anti-aircraft system. It's possible that terrorists got their hands on 9K33M3 vehicles and figured out a way to "jury rig" a launch system that could fit on a small ship, complete with the guidance radar. It is possible that TWA Flight 800 was brought down by such a jury rigged system, a system that is not known to law enforcement authorities at the time of TWA Flight 800 crash.
From middle 1980's on, the Soviets sold many 9K33M3 mobile SAM systems to a number of countries in the Middle East. With a maximum rang of 9.3 miles and capable to engaging targets as high as 40,000 feet, the 9K33M3 was potentially a formidable anti-aircraft system. It's possible that terrorists got their hands on 9K33M3 vehicles and figured out a way to "jury rig" a launch system that could fit on a small ship, complete with the guidance radar. It is possible that TWA Flight 800 was brought down by such a jury rigged system, a system that is not known to law enforcement authorities at the time of TWA Flight 800 crash.
Perhaps. But it also could have been US Navy out of a sub. At the time, a report was made about purely electronic training and practice missile firings that had, occasionaly, actually fired a missile by mistake. So whether it was an accident, or naval black ops under the cover of a mistake, no one knows. But the massive amount of documented witnesses, the subsequent testimonies of witness intimidation by the FBI, the explosive residue tested on the fabric of the seats, the blast hole in side (not bottom) of the reassembled fuselage, the virtual impossibility of reproducing a center fuel tank explosion and the complete lack of any other such explosion in all of aviation history, etc., etc., etc, make the missile explanation rock solid and beyond question.
So, it was a coverup. Gee, a coverup involving dead people during the Clinton administration. How unusual, huh?