Contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe, engines are not the only thing that can malfunction on an aircraft.
While a tail hit like that of KAL 007 that destroyed all tail control would surely doom the aircraft, a heat-seeking missile like an AIM-9 would most likely go for the engines. The R-60 that hit KAL 902 struck the aircraft near Engine #1, and blew 4 meters off of the wing. As a 747 is a much larger aircraft than a 707, one R-60 missile would not seriously threaten it, but an AIM-9 could. We just can't tell for certain. The KAL 902 hit didn't seem to damage the control surfaces or hydraulics. This is because the 707 did not use hydraulics on the control surfaces (for the most part). The 747, with its four redundant hydraulic systems could plausibly take more damage. Only a catastrophic failure of two or more systems could take a major control surface off line.
This is of course assuming that if fired, an AIM-9 would strike an outboard engine. If it struck an inboard engine, damage to the fuselage would be severe. Going back once again to KAL 902, shrapnel from the R-60 killed one passenger and wounded several others. Presumably, with the distance from the outboard engine to the fuselage of a 747 being much greater the damage would be about the same. However, an inboard engine hit would undoubtedly kill many of the passengers. Even if it did not doom the aircraft, upon landing we could expect to see news footage of people staggering off the aircraft bleeding, others having to be carried off. It would probably be shown alongside news reels of the WTC, Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93 in the years to come.
Going back to the original question, I think that it could be possibly spun as "This happened because of Al-Qaeda. Without them, the fatal series of miscommunications would not have happened. The pilots of KAL 085 are not to blame. The pilots of the F-15's are not to blame. If there is anybody to blame, it is Al-Qaeda."