Would the same thing happen in a Boeing?
I too watched the Horizon documentary and was surprised to learn that full rudder deflection could cause loss of a tail. Designing a tail which is so vulnerable to catastrophic failure strikes me as a ludicrous weakness and one which ought to be addressed. I would like to think that any airliner I fly on is capable of handling full control surface deflections in case they are ever required to avert disaster. There are many cases of pilots who have flown outside the flight envelope in order to save the aircraft. I would be interested to know if such rudder inputs were applied to a Boeing with an aluminium tail whether it would fail also or whether it might be stronger.
Presumably sometime in the past 50 years other pilots may have done the same thing - the question is whether they survived because they were flying a conventionally constructed tailplance!
Desk-pilot