jwocky wrote:Not hard to spot. If a surface is in when it is ripped off, the anchor points (not sure about the right technical term in English) will be ripped open forward and the joint axis will be bent against the direction of force in the tracks, if the surface is out (like a flap at higher settings), the joint axis will be only slightly bent but the and limiter of the track will be bent extremely upward and will leave significant groves on the axis. I hope, I get the description good enough to make the difference transparent?
Somewhat understood your description .. but unless the thingamjig connecting the flaps are still present on the flaps itself (from the pics, they don't seem to be - but what do i know), what I am thinking is that there is more way to rip out the flaperon pieces than just impact with water... a wing hittin the water first, for instance, bending said wing and breaking the flaps loose without the flaps/flaperon/pieces touching water until much later, or a mid-air breakup, or a bellyflop into the water, etc.
Anyway, not to say I don't trust their judgement, just quite interested in how they went through tthat process (computer modelling, scale modelling etc.) to come to this conclusion.