I had a similar thing happen. I was working on landings and low level passes with my PT 40. On one pass, I drifted it into some long grass (about 3 feet high on one side of our runway). Looked the plane over, no damage. Refueled and got up in the air again. The plane was way out of trim for some reason, I could not give her enough roll trim to fly well, after a couple of circuits I landed and investigated. My mishap had losened the bolts on the control horn of the rudder, the horn came right out and I had no rudder to use and it was causing the problems. If that had been the elevator, I would have not been able to keep the plane in the air.

Minor mishap could have killed the plane, I now know to check every connection after every rough landing, or minor crash.