On Sep 5, 10:12*am, GARY BOGGS wrote:
The NTSB said that the bent tow hook mount was inconsistent with the
crash. *It is also very hard for me to imagine that a tow rope would
be strong enough to bend the tow hook mount.

Sorry about the lawyer comment. *I hope it's not true.

FWIW, when I was a new instructor, I allowed one student to get a
little too far behind the PIO curve on tow (this well above 1,000
feet) and we swung rapidly from low and right to high and left. Ka-
thwang - there was a God awful jerk and I saw the towplane (an L-19)
diving away. We'd actually broken the tow hitch from the towplane
(it remained connected by the release cable). The mounting plate was
pretty mangled. Luckily, I wasn't mangled by the towpilot, who gave
me a well-deserved dressing down behind the hangar.

Not saying this is or isn't related to the Oregon crash, but it is
possible to do a significant amount of damage to the tow hitch if you
let enough slack develop and don't handle the recovery well...