Хочу привести цитату от Тома Купера в копилку разных версий.

It seems that the successful turning away of two Foxbats was too much for local Libyan commanders, and soon after, their SAM-sites around Sirte started to fire at USN fighters. The first launching was registered around 13:52hrs, from a SAM-site near Syrte. The SA-5 is a huge weapon, not especially nimble and dangerous only for slower and less maneuvreable aircraft. It couldn't hit any of F-14s. Shortly after, two additional SA-5s were fired, but both were jammed by an EA-6B, which meanwhile started to support Tomcats. Interestingly, the Soviet report (see Part 3) mentions nothing of what happened afterwards on the same day, when the USN started to respond in force, but explains about the US "seach and rescue helicopters". Most likely, these were USN aircraft sent to identify several Libyan warships which sortied out towards the US CVBGs.

http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_358.shtml

Хочу обратить внимание что пуски ракет С-200 расписаны поминутно, следовательно факт пуска американцы как-то вычисляют.
Кроме того Купер считает что ракеты С-200 могут быть опасны для только больших и неманевренных целей.