Originally Posted by
DARKMAIZE
...last I checked there has been no confirmation that the two aircraft in fact touched each other, let alone what actually occurred to the returned plane. Perhaps there was a flock of birds involved and thus any damage was known to be minimal...
While the portion of comms with ATC (post #9) makes no direct reference to a collision, the summary of the accident on ATSB website certainly defines it as a mid-air collision between the aircraft.
ATSB also indicate damage to -DQJ as being "minor" consistent with one of the posts here. How did -DQJ sustain only minor damage while -DZJ seemingly became uncontrollable? Perhaps instead the pilot was incapacitated? That said, the recent Caboolture mid-air also resulted in only wing damage to the tow plane while the other became uncontrollable.
News reports also noted the 20m water depth (even if some articles scrambled this information). At first I thought a diving jet could easily impact the sea bed given depth is only about twice the length of the aircraft. But if it remained largely intact after water impact, it would decelerate very quickly due to its buoyancy, even from a vertical decent.