Stability and Control characteristics of the Early Mark Spitfires

[6S.Manu]

Originally Posted by Glider

It is not a limited investigation on only 121 accidents... a small sample of course
Please read the posting again. These were all the accidents from the beginning of 1941 until the end of the war.

I certainly agree that it should be a mature debate, with evidence to support any statement. So I await with some interest your explanation of how you determined that this was a small sample.

The interview start with:
"Out of a total of 121 serious or major accidents to Spifires reported to us between the begining of 1941 and the end of the war, 68 involved structural failure in the air. Initially the most common reason for such failures, with 22 instances in 1941 and 1942, was aileron instability. The symptoms were not at all clear cut: the aircraft were usually diving at high speed when they simply fell to pieces."

And finishes with:
"a total of more than 22,000 were built, and we were called in on only 130 occasions"

Maybe I'm reading wrong, you know, but it does not state they were all the Spitfire's accidents during all the war... they are the ones reported to the Air Accident Investigation Branch.

Does this imply these were all the accidents regarding this kind of plane?
Could be that sometimes an investigation was not necessary?
What about accidents over the Channel and France, where they couldn't analyse the wrecks?