After all these years and all this arguing going around I still find it terribly unnerving that a transport category aircraft lost a control surface after flying over my house.
being only an airplane driver and somewhat unfamiliar with the certification process I find it terribly hard to swallow that I can shake apart my aircraft at such a low speed.
Also, maybe this is a moot point but that Japan air 74 that leaves at MTOW has a very low climb gradient, maybe the lowest other than the odd 340.
I usually see the A300 outclimb the 747 so it seems that wake contact would be minimal.
Conspiracy theories aside, could there be more to this than just the wake theory?