Is it really likely that damage like that could occur unless there was something pretty seriously wrong with the airframe already? I'd have guessed the gear would collapse first and/or some pretty extensive injuries to pax before the frame would buckle like that...unless there were cracks or corrosion or something.
Something very similar happened to a USAir DC-9 back in 1992 at my local airport.
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...11X13939&key=1
It was windshear-related. Basically, the "bottom dropped out" while the crew was beginning the flare, and the aircraft hit very hard from about 20 feet above the runway.
In this incident, two PAX who were seated above the point where the fuselage broke suffered compression fractures in the vertebrae of their lower backs.
The aircraft was written off. Maintenance crews from the airline stripped the aircraft of engines, avionics, and other re-useble parts. The airframe was then sawn up into rather small pieces, and hauled away.
Jim Barrett