"Rick Durden" wrote in message
m...
| Chuck,
|
| The video is quite old. I'm wondering how it happened to get
| attention now. It got a ton of attention when it happened...I guess
| we just have short memories.
|
| It is during the testing of the DC-9-80 back in the '70s (they later
| called it the MD-80 but it was DC-9-80 on the Type Certificate). It
| is one of the hard landing tests. Unfortunately, the flight crew got
| the descent rate a bit high at impact/touchdown and the tail broke
| off...as it was designed to do.

Why was it designed to do that?