The government was too afraid of admitting that because of public fears of flying, and admission of ineptitude in guarding our boarders from smuggled missiles?
Any comments on the eye witnesses, and why they were disregarded.
Any terrorist who was going to plant himself offshore and shoot down an airliner flying out of JFK would have fired the missile from a point further west.
While I agree that those people saw something off the south shore of Long Island, we must take comments like "It was definitely a missile!" with a grain of salt. How would they know? Have they ever seen a live firing of a surface-to-air missile in the first place?