til someone says differently (and to my knowledge, at the present, no one has) the fact that water/ice that had been known to find its way into the tail section of at least some A300/310 aircraft (has it ever been confirmed that
ALL A300/310 aircraft had water collecting in the tail prior to the “fix?”) had no contribution to the fact that the tail of AA587 separated in flight as a result of massive sideslip and multiple, rapid, and complete rudder applications and reversals.
It only takes one to set up a failure when forces are exceeding REMAINING strength and write off the lot of them!
I refer you all to the Airtransat rudder failure out of Cuba where the final incident report refers to another AT aircraft having "20 liters of water in the bottom of the rudder due to drain holes becoming plugged...."
It does not take much imagination what will happen when this water turns to ice and the expansion will, no doubt, put pressure on skin "glue" joints and, eventually cause delamination. Perhaps the riveted rudders were more resiliant to this?