MX5050 woes of spacehatch

[spacehatch]

(I meant to post this in analog only,not general recording. Sorry about the double thread) I was tracking drums last night. Albeit I was hitting the tape pretty hard but everything seemed ok. Then I realized I had lost track 8 when it didn't show up on a take. At the end of the previous take the rack tom got wacked rather hard (fortunately at the end of the tune). When listening back to it, the channel peaked pretty seriously than immediately dropped out, as if I had blown the channel up. It sounded like a gate shutting. My signal chain was extremely simple and it was the first thing I checked. Everything up to the Otari's input was ok. I shut the machine off (with tape on it. Is that bad?) Left for a minute and reupped the whole path from scratch. Iseemed to be alright after that. My question. Do these Otaris have some kind of Circut breaker/safety so you can't fry the channel?