I've had my FS for a few years now, and I have never had this happen until recently. Usually if I crash (which doesn't happen as often now, and then only if I'm messing around ) the plane will just hit the ground with the crash sound effect and look as if it's imbedded in the ground with some smoke or dirt kicked up.

The other day I was flying my C182RG with the new paint job files I got for it, and I crashed near a runway (don't remember which one) while in a slight bank and the left wing broke off and the main body of the plane broke in half and hit the ground and burst into flames! It looked cool but good thing that wasn't real...

Anyway, I started to wonder if it was something built into the files for the new paint job, or if was just always there, and you have to hit just right to see it happen that way.

Anyone ever see this happen?

You can add a function to your planes in FS2002 without add ons!!.  Microsoft acually built in a reasonable damage modelling engine but never enabled it.  To anable it, go into each aircrafts config files and add the line

visualdamage=1

Happy crashing