Missile attacks target US forces in Iraq

[Irving]

As a complete lay person to both commercial aircraft, and military arms, I find it pretty fascinating that after taking two missile strikes, the plane kept flying for some amount of time.

[Gman]

It's parallel to shot placement in our world.

The plane wasn't that high so catastrophic decompression wasn't yet an issue.

[spqrzilla]

Anti aircraft missiles actually have relatively small warheads with proximity fuzing. They are designed to put out a burst of fragments not unlike a scaled up grenade. Between IR seekers and their susceptible to foreign object damage, engines loss are the most common damage. As an example, the Korean 747 shot down by Soviet Su15 in 1983 lost hydraulic systems and took more than 10 minutes to crash.