My apologies for not reading the first post which "suggested" that the wings fell off but no apologies for my comments about gcolyer's unhelpful statement where he raisied the issue of the T'Hawks wing life limit.
I know T'Hawks are an aircraft that can bring out the worst or best in people but the fact remains that the safety record of this aircraft type is second to none (notwithstanding pilot induced incidents).
The facts of the Barton incident will eventually become public knowledge when the AAIB publish their report but I can categorically state that it will show that structural failure played no part in the cause of the accident whatsover, as I made it my business to make enquiries into the facts of the incident.
By all means draw your own conclusions about what was the cause of this accident but human nature being what it is, many of you will continue to draw conclusions (usually all the wrong ones) and tell the world about them.
Incidentally, those of you that are interested in facts rather than spurious statements, may be interested to know that in all cases where the FAA approved wing life extension modification has been installed in US T'Hawks (over 30 to date), no corrossion, delamination or cracks have been found in the wing structure. Bearing in mind that the majority of these aircraft had over 10000hrs on the airframe and many if not all were from flight schools or had spent the majority of their lives in the hands of students, I think the lack of any stress related problems in the wing structure, is testimony to their rugged construction.
and yes, I do own a T'Hawk (10600hrs) which I fly out of my extremely rough farm strip and despite my previous ownership of homebuilt and vintage types which were more at home on farmstrips, I am still amazed at how rugged and forgiving the T'Hawk can be when subjected to worst possible scenarios.
I'd better get outside and give my T'Hawk it's daily hug!
p.s. my "veins" are fine, more than can be said for the health of your spellchecker, old chap!