Originally Posted by
Lyman
The steel saddles survived, the FIN tabs, their corollary, snapped off.
Don't you mean Aluminium?
The attach points failed at a load considerably beyond that which was expected - if that's not enough of a clue then I don't know what would be. In terms of anecdotal evidence regarding strength of construction, the only airliner to land safely after a SAM strike was an A300.
In any case, the metal components were only handling a fraction of the load. I'm happy to be proven wrong - just take a B767 up and replicate the inputs - any takers?