Originally Posted by
rolling20
Once when a Bulldog went in, one of our QFIs told us : 'You may think that as the fuselage looks intact, that it may have been survivable. Let me assure you, that the aircraft hit the ground with enough force.....' To put it politely, it wasn't survivable.
It seems to go both ways. The 1979 crash of P-51D "Red Baron" piloted by Steve Hinton was mentioned recently in another thread, so it immediately came to mind: "The RB-51 crashed short of the runway. The wings were sheared off as the plane came down between two piles of rock and the fuel erupted in a fireball. The cockpit was thrown end-over-end away from the fire, yet Hinton survived with a broken back, leg, and ankle. His survival is attributed by one of the lead engineers, Pete Law, to additional braces and a roll bar installed on the cockpit."
It took some effort, but i found a photo. The text is from a sponsor, Michelob beer.
Looking at the wreck of the Piper I too thought it looked survivable, sorry it wasn't.