Originally Posted by rickair7777

The history of vert stab/rudder failures is on the A300/310 series, not the A320. Different airplanes, although I'm sure some design philosophy bleed over.

In an extreme turbulence situation, the vert stab is probably the most likely thing to fail first on any aircraft. It has a large lever arm.

Also the wings/ailerons and horiz stab/elevators are designed to take large loads in normal flight regime.

The vertical structure normally only needs to handle large control deflections in a low-speed, engine out scenario. It is designed with a lot of area to generate needed counter-yaw at low airspeed.

But there is certainly suspicion that airbus takes a minimalist approach to vert stab strength, as compared to other manufacturers.