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Re:Citing new evidence, families sue feds, Raytheon, Lockhee... by WalterBright on Sunday September 25, 2022 @01:02PM (#32973382)
A missile with a dummy warhead could easily bring it down without exploding. Just hit it where structural failure would result. What you'd want to look for is an appropriately sized hole, and residue from the missile's exhaust.

The reason for the warhead is to improve the odds of the bringing down the airplane.

Re:Citing new evidence, families sue feds, Raytheon, Lockhee... by wbl on Sunday September 25, 2022 @02:22PM (#32974318)
No it could not unless it impacted at exactly the wrong place. Downing planes with missiles is hard: much of a plane can survive having a hole in it, while there are a few critical sections.

A AIM-9 crashed into a MIG, didn't go off, got stuck, and reverse engineered after landing.

Re:Citing new evidence, families sue feds, Raytheon, Lockhee... by sudosysgen on Sunday September 25, 2022 @05:07PM (#32976246)
An SM-2 and an AIM-9 have a two order of magnitude difference in kinetic energy. It's not even close. The SM-2 is 10x heavier and would impact such a target at relative velocity of Mach 2+, whereas a Sidewinder will often impact at only a few hundred kilometers an hour.

At the same time, a 747 and a MiG are two completely different vehicles.

An SM-2 has a solid chance of sinking a ship - and was seriously investigated for that application. A direct hit on a 747 is game over. It's going to go clean through, and if it's into the fuselage, cut it in two.

Re:Citing new evidence, families sue feds, Raytheon, Lockhee... by WalterBright on Sunday September 25, 2022 @05:40PM (#32976585)
A 747 has plenty of wrong places that if hit would be curtains. It is not designed to resist battle damage. It is designed to resist failure of individual components.
Re:Citing new evidence, families sue feds, Raytheon, Lockhee... by Gamecollector on Sunday September 25, 2022 @02:16PM (#32974243)
The radar tapes show something impacting the plane and then "spiraling away", sounds like it could easily be a collision by a missile without a warhead.

> For example, Dr. Stalcup obtained several FBI records never released to the TWA 800 families or the public. One described an “original [Navy radar] tape” showing an object “heading straight for TWA 800.” Another describes an object on radar “impact[ing]” TWA 800 and “spiral[ling] away,” while also stating that witnesses described seeing a “flair (sic) going up. . . . , orbit/circle another object. Subsequently debris fell from the sky.”