A mate of mine who's just returned from Singapore was a pax on that flight, sitting down the back.
He says the grinding noise when the tail hit was horrendous.
No, he did not think he was going to die
but he was surprised that they did not return to YSSY to land to have it checked out <img src="confused.gif" border="0">
I tried to find out something about it on the ATSB site but last time I looked there was nothing there.