This is an obvious troll post, but it is interesting how an airliner kept flying in spite of taking a missile hit (or two?) The answer is that surface-to-air a

This is an obvious troll post, but it is interesting how an airliner kept flying in spite of taking a missile hit (or two?) The answer is that surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles don't generally slam into their target and erupt into a big flamey explosion. Instead, they are more like shotgun shells that explode near their target. Moving targets are hard to hit (especially e.g. a fighter plane attempting to evade) so this gives them a greater chance to damage their target. It's also not generally necessary to blow a target to smithereens. Planes are fragile and insanely complicated. Militarily, damaging one is as good as destroying it. Even if it remains airborne that plane is going to have to leave the fight and even if it makes it back to base it's not going to be flying again for a long time, if ever. So it's not too surprising that an airliner stayed aloft for a time after a missile hit. It would not have been blown to bits, and it has at least two engines. A single missile, exploding nearby, could leave at least one engine and some/most control surfaces functional. (Of course, often a missile strike is fatal to an airliner, as we have also unfortunately seen throughout history)