[aristeides]

Michael Rivero (RIP) was always blaming the Navy. I -- and most people posting on TWA 800 threads -- have always been agnostic about whether the guilty parties who fired the probable missile were the US Navy or terrorists. However, Rivero did have one good argument for his conclusion that I would like to see an answer to: why, if terrorists shot the plane down, did the US Navy, which was having exercises on scene, hightail it out of there, instead of seeking out the terrorists (who presumably would have posed a danger to further flights out of JFK)?

[hchutch]

I doubt many of the planes were armed. IIRC, it was a P-3 Orion, not what you'd use to go after someone in a small craft. For that alleged exercise, it would also be unarmed. All you'd be doing is throwing away the dozen or more people on that P-3.