I haven't seen evidence, I've seen claims of evidence, and claims that pretty much ignore the fact that the aircraft was well out of reach of a shoulder fired missile at the time. Of course, some conspiracy theorists picked up on this and switched gears to "errant US Navy Missile" but there is nothing really to back this up. The Egyptian Air kamikaze into the sea, though, that deserves more looking into. According to the NTSB, the most common last words of a depserate pilot are "Oh Sh!T!!!" not "Praise Allah!"

EA 999 was suspicious

I'm with Sarge on this one. There's far more evidence of a Islamic terrorist connection to Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing than there is to the crash of TWA 800. In fact, TWA 800 is rather unique in that no Islamic terrorist group has come forward to claim credit for it, even if they really didn't do it.

It's not hard to determined "cause of death" to an airplane when the cause was a shoulder fired missile. These things are heat seekers, which means they will explode, if they can, at or near an engine. The blast damage to the enginer will be evident. If they don't explode close to the engine, they will explode near the aircraft since they are designed to explode on "proximity" not contact. The nearby explosion will put a lot of obvious shrapnel damage into the plane. I recall almost all of the plane being salvaged, and the heavy blast damage was at the center fuel tank, not an engine, and no sign of external shrapnel.

TWA800 plane was *far* too high for a shoulder-fired missile to reach it, so that theory has zero possibility. The fact is this: the authorties found evidence of plastic explosives having detonated -inside- the plane, which can only mean a bomb aboard. Any other theory is simply bunk. NewGuy

JimDunnigan was on Fox News this morning- pretty much took apart all of the nonsense of Stingers stick being viable, and what it REALLY takes to take out a big jet, since the engine is designed to take heavy vibrations and heat, which is where a heat seeker would likely hit. He DID give a warning to private jets, since they arent designed to take a lot of punishment. GO JIM!! swhitebull

So NewGuy, you think it was a bomb? I always thaught it was either a bomb or a missile

ChrisWI, I don't merely think it was a bomb, I am certain is was a bomb. Look at the evidence: 1) No ManPad SAM in the world could have reached the plane at the altitude it was at when it suffered the explosion. 2) Investigators found traces of plastic explosive (specifically Semtex) on items from -inside- the plane. No missile would do this. Plus no missile warhead that I know of uses Semtex. 3) Significant evidence at the bombing trial was presented that pointed to a bomb being smuggled on board the plane -- this included both physical evidence and witnesses. So no other theory but a bomb fits the known facts and evidence of the incident. NewGuy

Then why did they cover it up?

>Then why did they cover it up?< It might cause a panic if Americans were to learn that they were unprotected from terrorism. Remember Clinton's terrorism policy was pretty much "sh*t happens"