I know we’ve analyzed this many, many times before, but most of us have probably gone to sleep or not, thinking about how that tailfin came off forward.
Well, I think it didn’t, in the normal sense, following on from Machinebirds break-up analysis, i.e. around the doors which I tend to agree with.
I would suggest that the fuselage broke, somewhere around the rear doors and with the aid of the horizontal stabiliser providing lift, that section immediately rotated rearwards, breaking the rudder rod 39g filling the fin with water under pressure, which the mountings couldn’t withstand.
We’ve seen powerboats do the same thing.
What would then happen to the rest of the aircraft would depend on whether there was significant thrust at the time, i.e. if the tail hit and broke before the rest made contact.
I think there are many similarities here, in terms of final arrival, with the Tripoli accident, although go-around power is probably not in the equation.
As an aside, I’d just like to praise the bravery of French sub-marimen, I suspect they are the only force of men that set to sea in nuclear powered submarines knowing that if anything happens their government will source a third party salvage team from anywhere in the world to rescue them. Harsh I know, but considering the French Navy operate such vessels it’s very strange that they don’t seem to have deep sea search available to assist with AF447 and I would hate to think what would happen if one of their subs went missing.