bartender--the gear in the first two incidents did basically free fall as the acuator wasnt attached and look what happened!! it went right through the centre and tried to carry on but something had to give and lock it couldnt, cause it had nothing to lock to!!!
Because it wasn't designed to freefall in the first place...
My point is, that calling alternate extension for "freefall" is at best an exaggeration, as:
A) It relies on valves to let the oil vacate the actuator in one end, and let oil (or any fluid for that matter) to enter the actuator at the other end.
B) It relies on the components listed in A to provide a dampening to prevent the mechanism to tear the locks apart at the end of the cycle..
As i understand it, on the last accident, "A" failed, and on the two first accidents, "B" failed...