Just as the aircraft was straightening out, he hit a second mountain of
turbulence which caused the tail to 'dig in' resulting in a 10+ G climb
rendering Leeward unconscious instantly and resulted in the tail wheel
falling out. (broken tail wheel support structure was found on the
course). As the Ghost shot upward the LH elevator trim tab broke loose.
This can be heard on the tape, so the trim tab did not cause the
accident.
Not sure I'm entirely in agreement with this analysis. As I stated earlier, I think I'm seeing some differential movement of the elevators in one of the left bank event initiation videos. If correct, this implies a similar failure to the Voodoo Chile pitch up.
Looking at the Voodoo Chile picture of the tail after the event, the elevators are clearly pointing in different directions.
If you look at the elevator actuating bellcrank and a sample elevator, the most logical point of failure on Voodoo would be something like the 3 hole bracket on the end of the torque tube where it is riveted to the torque tube with what appears to be AN470 rivets
If the torque tube sheared outboard of that location, you would likely lose the entire elevator. since the center and outboard pivot points should fail sequentially if the inboard attachment is lost. The bracket collar would act to restrain the inboard end of the elevator torque tube if the rivets sheared.
Does anyone here actually know where the elevators separated/sheared on Voodoo?
Could shearing of torque tube rivets be an initiating event for what we saw happening on GG?