OK, now you got me because I'm not aware of any witness accounts that say they saw two separate missiles. I won't go into the range limitations and the fact that Stingers use a heat-seeking warhead and the engines weren't hit, but I will ask how the terrorists could pick out an El-Al 747 from miles away?
Cardinal's Dying Wish: Keep Clinton Out of St. Patrick's
As Cardinal O'Connor battled brain cancer and faced death during the past eight months, he remained steadfast in his distaste of Bill Clinton. A source close to the Cardinal tells NewsMax.com that O'Connor had a long-standing order to keep Bill Clinton out of St. Patrick's Cathedral _ no matter how important the occasion. Last week the White House announced that both Bill and Hillary Clinton would be attending the Cardinal's funeral mass at St. Patrick's, set for Monday afternoon. "O'Connor would have gone berserk if he knew Clinton was coming," the source said.
O'Connor was said to be extremely hostile to Clinton, a man who annoyed him on several levels. O'Connor had been a veteran, a Navy Admiral who had served in the military and in the front lines of Vietnam. Clinton's draft avoidance record didn't sit well with the Cardinal, nor did Clinton's corruption.
O'Connor was also annoyed with Clinton's strong advocacy of partial birth abortion _ a procedure O'Connor likened to infanticide.
O'Connor's animus toward the president erupted after the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996. In the days after the tragedy, Mayor Giuliani had organized a memorial service for the victims' families at JFK Airport.
Cardinal O'Connor was set to officiate, until he found out Clinton planned on attending. "If Clinton is coming, you can count me out," O'Connor's office bluntly told the mayor's office. Clinton was quickly disinvited.
A month or so after the crash, O'Connor hosted his own memorial mass at St. Patrick's for the victims. Clinton was in New York that weekend for a birthday party and the White House called the Archdiocese and asked if he could attend.
The answer from the Cardinal's Office was blunt: Bill Clinton is not welcome at St. Patrick's.
Among the dozens of witness statements, a pattern emerged that could be plotted, roughly. It looks like 2 missles were fired, one from very close in-shore, and one from 3-5 miles further out.
If a missle is fired but it is pointing toward you, instead of away from you, it is MUCH harder to see the hot exhaut at the tip of the nozzle.
The plane was at the edge of the Stinger envelope. The stinger has a range of 8 kilometers with a ceiling of 10,000 ft (per GlobalSecurity.org).
TWA800 was at appr. 13,500 when it was hit.
Looking up at the bottom of a 747, the center fuel tanks sits very closely to the A/C units. In fact, it was this A/C unit that supposedly overheated the CFT vapors.
If a missle is looking at a blob of heat, then they seperate into 4 distinct heat sources (5 if you count the A/C) I can see the heat seeker locking on to the A/C heat source.
Also, if the Stinger was at the edge of it’s range, it may have lost maneuverability and simply missed the engine and hit near the CFT.
Flight plans and paths are public information. IF the terrorist had a watch and a pair of binoculars, they would have easily been able to pick out a 747. But at that time of night, livery colors would be almost impossible to pick out.
They look at their watch, calculate the time and shoot at what they THOUGHT was the El-Al flight. Instead they hit TWA800.