posted on the warbirdsresource board.
Here's what I have been told from somebody in the know.
"The crash was kind of a sucker punch. The gear indicated down after the emergency Nitrogen extension. It looked good from the chase plane, and indicated 3 greens.
The had done quite a bit of work on the gear retraction and hydraulic system before the flight. Changed a microswitch on the nose gear which shut off the hydraulic electrical pump, and done at least 10 successful cycles.
The gear was first retracted successfully. Wolf then cycled the gear down, but the cycle stopped with the nose gear down about 35 degrees and the mains still in the housing with the doors closed.
After a few more tries and checking the cb, the emergency extension was tried and gave good results with the gear going right down.
There was no option to go around. The aircraft had landed on the center line and was operating normally when the wing went down, and was brought back up momentarily with the aileron. This lasted only a second, and there was no time for engine response to effect a go around. He didn't try it as he became a passenger pretty quickly. It would have been much better if he had been able to keep the plane on the runway.
Alas, there was quite a bit of damage. The left gear that collapsed was fine, but the right gear broke and came back and damaged the flaps. They'll figure out the damage when they get straps under it on Monday. They are taking off the movable parts now to avoid further damage on the retrieval. "
