megan
If that is the air show prang I am remembering, that was the third attempt at a loop by that pilot. He had high velocity, pulled all the way back, failing both Horizontal stabilizers. The instant they failed, after imparting extreme positive load to the wings, the aircraft, without its tail, “fell” into negative load, creating a “whiplash” reversal which tore the wings off. It is not at all surprising that given the extreme loads in reversal, the wings failed at similar stations. Shock load exceeds any required performance standard, so I would take exception to your analogy....
Your vehement defense of vertical requires the aircraft hit the berm at exactly ninety degrees on. Did it?
Dihedral?