1. The altitude and speed of the aircraft make a MANPADS engagement all but impossible (by strange things do happen so that doesn't completely exclude it). The limitation is mainly on the seeker, which would be well past its capabilities, yet the ballistic envelope would also be right on the edge.
2. MANPADS have IR seekers and would definitely not have hit the center fuselage if launched from directly below as would have been the case. It would have hit an engine and/or possibly a wing just beside an engine. The damage would have been extremely isolated.
3. MANPADS are finely tweaked and maxed out systems. The idea that they are "easily modifiable" as you suggest is an assertion completely ignorant of the technology.
4. A MANPAD hit would nevertheless have created a fragmentation detonation or a if the missile was a dud, an air to air impact. Forgetting about the area of damage being very distant from the massive heat plumes of the engines, the evidence showed no intrusion damage and none of the hundreds of embedded missile parts and/or warhead fragments. Dud warhead hits on aircraft have occurred and leave plenty of evidence, although little damage. Comparing this to a car, it is like saying that your engine didn't just catch fire, but that you think you were struck by a red truck traveling at 60 mph, except there are no dents and no red paint on your vehicle.
5. MANPADS have a very short burn that puts them up to speed and then glide. No streak of light would have been around the aircraft at that altitude, because there would have been nothing to produce it on a MANPADS.
6. Much like the big balls of AAA that were seen rising from Baghdad (you might have caught that on TV), missiles look the same as they rise until burn out. MANPADS burn out quickly, but bigger missiles can burn up past 13,000 ft. In either case, they do not create a streak of light, as they aren't traveling at warp speed. A missile that would be so illuminated would have had to have been fired from more than a couple miles horizontally from TWA 800 and would have had a long flight. Mach 2 is not a "streak" or "blur" when viewed from more than a few hundred yards away.
6. Any missile that would be large enough to hit the aircraft at that altitude would have done enormously more damage (even if they were a dud) than occurred and puts us back at #4. Additionally, those missiles would have required a large, complicated, and expensive launching system, that would have been serial numbered back to the supplier if found. The logic behind an overt act of state war to bring down a single airliner for no gain of any kind is a head scratcher in itself.
7. Lacking an kind of material evidence that would irrefutably be present if your theory was true, you are left arguing that there is a massive cover-up. That the evidence was there, but the gov't lied. Career NTSB workers with no fidelity to Clinton had to have lied, dozens of them, and not one of them came forward. Once you head down that path you are immune to facts of any kind.
But I'm supposed to discount all of this based on a party video that apparently doesn't exist.
No, its simply a second dose of your self touted 'expert opinion' on MANPAD hdwe.
The logic behind an overt act of state war to bring down a single airliner for no gain of any kind is a head scratcher in itself.
The logic behind an overt act of war to bring down the WTC for no gain of any kind is another head scratcher.
Lacking an kind of material evidence that would irrefutably be present if your theory was true,
I have no specific 'theory'. - You keep irrationally insisting otherwise. That idea exists only in your mind. Poor fella.
you are left arguing that there is a massive cover-up.
I've never argued that. You have a massive misconception about what I'm posting.
That the evidence was there, but the gov't lied. Career NTSB workers with no fidelity to Clinton had to have lied, dozens of them, and not one of them came forward. Once you head down that path you are immune to facts of any kind.
Rant on. -- You're only making yourself look foolish.
But I'm supposed to discount all of this based on a party video that apparently doesn't exist.
My wife & I saw the 'party tape' loop being shown on a network satellite feed the night of the incident. - Others did too. The tape was never seen again. - Discount what you will.
Does he think TWA 800 was destroyed by:
A. A deadly streak of light.
B. A magic missile.
C. A party tape.
D. The network satellite feed.
E. The CIA.
F. A gunman on the grassy knoll.
G. A black hole.
H. A death ray.
I. A UFO.
J. Global warming.
K. The Bermuda Triangle.
L. The New Jersey Devil.
M. Sasquatch.
N. Gremlins.
O. An episode of 24.
P. A shift in the space time continuum.
Q. Bad spark plugs.
R. Poor grammar.
S. The Loch Ness Monster.
T. A secret Navy weapon.
U. Rap music.
V. A nude photo of Rosie O’Donnel
W. Bad karma.
X. Cell phones.
Y. The Free Masons.
Z. You and me.