in MEM the RH gear catastrophically failed – the unit broke into six pieces
That sounds interesting - certainly from a point of view of absolving the driver. I'm not an expert in materials engineering by any means, but I would have thought that even a heavy landing should be close enough to the design envelope of the undercarriage leg to result in a more linear "shear" type of failure at the weakest point. However, the unit breaking 'catastrophically' into six pieces sounds a little more like it could be
fatigue crack propogation ??
Does anybody have any more detailed info, or care to comment?