[RaceBannon]

I agree. The tail-failure theory as being the cause, that was hogwash in my opinion, however, an explosion causing major structural damage, sideslip, and other unnatural forces, can easily provide the forces necessary to make the composite material reach failure.

[eno_]

Plus, it was not just a composite structure that failed. BOTH engines came off at about the same time. The only plausible explanation for that is air load on the cowlings. Plus, if you look at the pictures AvWeek has of the tail, you see, intact, a very light composite honeycomb tail that one could probably damage with a wooden mallet if you whacked it good, but that snapped off at six carbon fiber lugs each as thick as a phone book. I think the only plausible explanation for that is that air load, uniformly distributed over the surface of the tail, caused the lugs to fail. Conversely, if the empennage had come apart, the tail would have shredded due to it flapping around while each lug, in turn, snapped. The same logic applies to why the engines, and cowlings, were mostly intact and they snapped off the pylons, which, by the way, were NOT designed to break away in case of a gear-up landing. They both broke off at roughly the same instant - the same forces had to be acting on both engines at the same time and in the same amount.