[Alberta's Child]

There have been some extensive discussions on FR about TWA Flight 800, and after all of the evidence I've seen I concluded that the aircraft WAS shot down, but not by terrorists. The most likely culprit appears to be a U.S. Navy ship that was taking part in live-fire exercises off the coast of Long Island that night.

[dark_lord]

The most likely culprit appears to be a U.S. Navy ship that was taking part in live-fire exercises off the coast of Long Island that night.

Except that:
(1) When doing live fire exercises, everything from missle prelaunch, to launch, to tracking the flight, to target acquisition, to hit (or miss) is recorded in multiple places on the ship and with the "umpires" who are running the exercise.

(2) The fire control team, the radar operators, and the bridge would know damn quick if that happened. And so would the umpires. And word would go through the crews mess like lightning. Heck, there are always extra guys hanging around - running coffee, manning the phones, etc. No way could they keep it quiet. Not possible.

(3) There is no "top secret" quick we screwed up pull out the "cover up" manual. The exercise would be terminated immediately, the umpires would be calling up one chain of command and the ship would be calling up another. Word would go out to the Coast Guard pretty damn quick. And the ship would immediately go charging out to see if there were any survivors at flank speed.

Nope. No way it was a live fire exercise mistake. That is tin hat stuff.

[Taxman]

I believe that TWA-800 crashed because of a deliberate Terrorist action.

I don't think it was a Navy missle. Too many people would have known about it, and someone would have blown the whistle.