Thanks for your thoughts. I figure I just had a lot of bad luck due or something

Maybe you're right about the additional wear from the gyro movements Spaceman, but I couldn't find the servo end of the rod after the crash! When the rod came off the servo it went up in to the disc and that made it fly off (breaking the tail pitch control lever right off rather than coming off at the ball-link). The rod is a mess (see attached pic).

I've only had this heli for a few months now - do you really think wear is a possible cause for the rod to come off? I have been trying to work out if perhaps the servo moved too far. If the heli is sat still and I move the stick through its full motion it doesn't appear to move far enough to pull the rod off the ball-link, but what if the gyro was adding additional movement? Possible?