Remember the Voyager had wingtip damage at take-off. They
did some maneuvers to break their winglets off.

A few years ago a 707 had an engine fire and melted about
half a wing off the airplane.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/...0628-0&lang=en

A vertical winglet would be easily compensated with rudder

wrote in message
oups.com...
|I was recently on a SWA flight aboard a 737-800, and
looking at the
| large winglet that the 737-800 sports (for lift
enhancement, drag
| reduction), it occured to me that perhaps the recent
737-800 that went
| down in Brazil after colliding with an Embraer jet may
have had one of
| its winglets sliced off. The reports that I have read
state that the
| 737-800 spiraled out of control after the collision, which
I could
| envision happening if the lift/drag of the main wings had
a large
| amount of asymmetry due to the loss of a winglet. The
Embraer lost a
| portion of its wing, so if the two planes clipped wings,
odds are the
| Embraer hit the 10 feet tall winglet rather than the wing
itself since
| they are both in level flight.
|
| This is pure speculation, but it will be interesting to
see if the
| final report from Brazil indicates that this is what
occured.
|
| Dean
|