Curious of your opinion of my contention that a MANPAD like a Stinger or similar IR homing missile would have been enough to take out an engine - homing on the exhaust plume - but unlikely to result in the kind of breakup which claimed flt 800.
I think a MANPADS like the Stinger or an SA-18 might just have been able to do it. The altitude was at the extreem range of a stinger but the target aircraft would not have been trying to evade. The most modern versions of the stinger do not have to close from behind the exhaus but would detonate the warhead close to the engine from the front. A red hot fragment through the center fuek tank would cause the destruction as seen on flight 800. In short it is plausible but in many ways a lucky shot. That would be understndable if it was a terrorist plot and they had a hard time converting meters to feet. Now if it was professionals that were launching I would rule out the Stinger although the SA-18 has an 8,000 meter range/ceiling which is more than sufficient. An analysis of fragments from Brookhaven would give us those warheads that matched the composition of the fragments found. We can eventually reconstruct everthing from that.
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown