Ok, seems no one here is a battery expert. Being almost purely electric (shutup, they are 3D
) and knowledgeable on batteries, I will input the facts. The 4 cell 600 mAh pack should not have malfunctioned like that. 7 servos and a receiver draw maybe 8 amps at the most! I am not all that familiar with giant scale servo draw, but I don't think it would be much more or less than that. The battery sounds like it was in good condition. 8 amps is just fine for those batteries. I have drawn 17.5 amps out of the same kind of batteries with no ill effects, and probably 100 flights. A few minutes should not have been enough to drain those down to a point where they could not provide enough power to the servos. It should provide at least 30 minutes until a charge is recommended. So, don't blame the batteries "just because they are 600 mAh", this has absolutely nothing to do with it. Check the receiver, switch harness, wiring, and weld tabs on the batteries. Also, please realize I am not siding with the guy that crashed your plane. Actually, I am undecided on this, since the facts seem very spread apart, and there is no way to verify them.
Dan