Originally Posted by planemechanic
Do the wings still break before the design minimum? That's bad news that calls for a full retest not an analysis.
Informed speculation is that since the wings snapped within 3.5% of the design spec, updating the Finite Element models with the new specs and having them show the wing will indeed survive to 150% of load will be sufficient to certify them for flight, and will not require either another physical destructive test or a reduction in payload to meet the lower MTOW number that the wings did survive.