Originally Posted by
F4E Mx
The last line of data from the flight data recorder shows an instantaneous drop in altitude of 4,000 feet, a decrease in airspeed of 200 knots, and an angle of attack that goes from plus three degrees to plus 107 degrees. This line was later deleted from the final report as "unreliable" but is available in earlier released data. It sounds a whole lot like a pressure wave from an external explosion to me.
No, it sounds like the entire forward fuselage (which includes AoA vanes, pitot, and static) being torn off and up (see the computer recreation) as it started to go but before the various wire bundles had been ripped off.
A pressure wave that big would have required a huge blast that would have been seen by witnesses, as well as Infrared satellites.