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No dead birds don't shear off tail sections but a seperated engine could.

I've got to ask you, because this is what's holding me up thinking it's a bird strike. Did you see the vertical stabilizer after it came out of the water? It seemed to not have any visible damage on it, from what I could tell. If an engine had hit it, wouldn't there have been some sort of damage to it? I'd really like to know, if you see my post.

But how could a separated engine rise in the air, to an altitude above the level of the wing, and stay there long enough to knock the tail off? The same way TWA 800 went up 3,000 ft without the nose? A better spinscam is to say the engine exploded, blasting the wing into pieces, and a big enough piece of the wing then hit the tail and knocked it off. Of course, you have the problem of witnesses saying the tail departed the aircraft first... During the Bede Aviation development of the supersonic BD10J, the prototype experienced catastrophic structural damage, the empennage departed the aircraft, the thing pitched up and THEN both wings came off. Old Kallstrom has a tough row to hoe with this one. BTW the WSJ had a story a while back about some people tying the carcasses of hawks to ropes, and launching them into the air. The distinctive hawk outline in the air caused other birs to seekother pastures. PETA may have stopped this.