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Old 19th June 2009 | 16:35
  #1961 (permalink)  
lomapaseo
 
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 4,569
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From: Florida
Harry Mann - "pulled structure out!!"

No, it failed cleanly and very suddenly - this is shown by the damage to the lower rudder which nevertheless remained attached to the VS implying it was levered backward against the tail cone and shattered under sudden longitudinal compression. This in turn implies that the forward attachment failed very suddenly and explosively, the way composites do, and you can see this in the exposed cross-hatch "brushy" damage in the VS internal structure (seen from below).


As always there is the chicken and the egg as to what happened first. I would caution against presuming the composite VS failed first just by looking at the available photos.
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