My first week at Westlands , many decades ago , I witnessed the destructive test of a prototype Scout composite tail boom. One minute it was complete and then after a loud crack there were lots of graphite splinters flying around.
Of course this was the bad old days when all we could get was unidirectional High Modulus Fibre prepreg . The newer woven fibre is a little more forgiving. I suspect the mast was mostly Uni directional .