Voyeur: Sometimes when breakups happen they do so in the twinkling of an eye.
I once watched a Meteor 8 disintegrate at an air display, and if I had been asked for the sequence of events I would have said "it broke into pieces instantaneously", it was almost like an explosion.
The BOI established that it had suffered a double mainplane failure at, or close to, the wing root; the wings then broke into many other smaller pieces; this was followed by the separation of the rear fuselage, which then broke up pieces due the unnatural loads imposed on it.
Quite a lot of Meteors broke up in midair because of the excess loads imposed on them, either cumulative or instantaneous, we had no G meters in those days.