no I'm not a RL pilot.
and you just answered my question. It was unclear to me and maybe I just missed it, but you mentioned it happened after he took off, well then yeah, it is what it is and you have to just deal with it and he dealt with it good.
but when I fly fltsim, and I know its not r/l - I use fspassengers (a failure simulator) and I go through and full movement of all moving parts, elevator, rudder, aileron, etc. I just figured he would have felt it wobble but if it broke in flight, ...