Whats sader is he didnt read the building instructions. or.. they wernt clear enough, and this is the problem with artf, you dont know what your buying. a friend had a V-mar spitfire. the tail plane gave way in flight.
It was built with a 1/8 SQ leading and trailing edge sheeted with 1/16th balsa, the LE was rounded leaving very little strenght anyway. then to get a good glue grip the covering was cut away, this left a score in the balsa and a weak point at the fuz ( a weak point anyway )
We do have the rule about checking out new planes before flight, but its not normally carried out, espicialy if the planes owner flys it him self. Newbies cant normaly fly so the test pilot gives a quick check, but i admit, i've never checked things like correct build before a flight, just correct opperation.
Sometimes we've let dangerous planes fly just because we know it wont fly anywhere. Cartmans collection is a great example. a Correx combat delta ( seen on site below ) what we didnt know was it had a park flyer RX ( 200 foot range ) the damn thing flew! but only till it got out of range and then crashed in a bush on the edge of the cliffs. another Cartman project was him mini typhoon. i think i show you pics, coz its hard to describe...