A friend sent me the news report and just called after phoning contacts he knows at the Geraldton Airport which is about 200 miles north of Perth on the Coast.  An imported US-built Legacy crashed shortly after take off, rolled on impact and burned.  It was a training mission, first report is crew badly injured.  Airport personnel were very quickly at the crash site.   My friend learned in subsequent phone calls that while Legacy aircraft have the canopy hinged at the front, this one had the canopy hinged at the BACK (mistake number one).  At about 200 feet it popped open, but did not break off and so created huge drag and probably blanked the vertical stabilizer and rudder.  Pilot attempted to turn back to the runway (mistake number two).  Sink rate soared during the turn and the plane went down.   Two huge mistakes in a row.  It beggars belief.   Fred Moreno