I didn’t read this thread until now, but as I did, at first I thought nah, no way planes I’ve flown had been damaged. Then I thought about it some more.
A 172 was taxied behind a Dash 8 doing post maintenance run up testing and got blown over onto its side, bending a wing. Another 172 got caught parked outside in wind, and as the fueler rushed to tug it into a hangar the plane blew sideways and bent a wing. I’ve flown both of those since.
The FBO had a nice 172R. Only a couple of years old. Autopilot, moving map GPS, leather, clean, everything worked. This was the airplane you wanted to rent when taking up someone new to GA. A student rented it for a solo cross-country and tried to land in too strong of cross wind. He went off runway and ran over the segmented circle, which bent the prop and stripped the gear off, totaling the plane.
Another of the FBO’s 172’s was stalled by an instructor at maybe 80 feet above the runway. This was the event that gave me some real appreciation for Cessna’s design. There was damage almost everywhere: prop, engine case, both wings bent, rear fuselage bent, horizontal stab, etc. But the cabin and seats were relatively straight, and no fire. It was really impressive to look at it with all the damage it had and then notice how intact the cabin was. It was almost like someone had taken an almost straight cabin and hung a bunch of bent parts all around it.
Fortunately, no fatals. But, stuff happens.
