Rega planar 8/Apheta : Tiny needle arm collapsing on itself

Hi,
It took me a good few weeks to finally be able to extract the enormous potential of my new Planar 8 on my system. Today a Hifi news setup LP arrived in the mail in perfect virgin condition and 10 seconds after I played it I heard a silent crack sound followed by an eerie silence. I looked at the Apheta and realized that the tiny arm holding the needle is twisted sideways.
There was no hit, scratch or any violent motion that could explain how it happened. I listen to LPs for almost 40 years and I never had such an experience.
My biggest fear now is that this is not covered by the warranty :-(