Originally Posted by OldAg84
I think this was an MD test flight gone awry. I think I read somewhere the reattached the piece and the plane flew again. Does anyone know the real story behind the video and where the plane may have wound up?
My friend Jay, owner of the Alexis Park Inn (best crash/weird incident page on the Net BTW) says: "This was an early DC-9/MD-80 certification test. After this little demonstration they beefed up the tail section -- for obvious reasons!"
And the NTSB had this to say about the matter:
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/Photoga...t/AAR82-02.pdf
During a landing distance certification at Edwards AFB in May 1980, the ATP engineering test pilot was using a HUD doing some exotic pitch v. descent stabilization concept using only power to control sink rate (??? Ok for stabilizing approach but - no flare?). Keeping the pitch attitude fixed & stable
all the way to touchdown 
(???) for some reason I don't understand. Basically he intentionally didn't flare much if at all, only tried to flare 1 second before touchdown - I mean impact- and never broke the sink rate. Until the sink rate broke his nice airplane.
