At the time, I thought it looked very similar to an AIM-9. But 12 years later, I wouldn’t bet my career on it unless I had access to the video for analysis.
I’m not saying it WAS an AIM-9, I’m saying it had similar characteristics which gave me a sense of the Chaparral launches I’ve seen.
And I'm always interested in talking with people with experiences that I don't have, and I'm not trying to dismiss what you saw. All my missile experience was with Navy SAMs so while I'm familiar with the Chaparral I've never seen one in action. But correct me if I'm wrong, but the Chaparrel launcher weighed quite a bit and the missile used a heat seaking warhead. And one reason why I believe all these missile theories fall apart is because of limitations like this. Anything other than a shoulder fired SAM requires a launcher of some kind, so that leaves out small boats and the like. If it was a SAM, even ignoring the range limitations, then it used a heat-seeking warhead. Anything using a heat seaking warhead would have homed in on the biggest heat source around - one of the 4 engines. And I've seen nothing to indicated that any of them took the missile hit.
Again, I don't doubt that you saw something. It's just that the idea that it was a missile that brought the plane down just makes little sense to me, in light of what kind of missiles might have been available.