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Here's a picture of an AeroComp that I helped haul out of Clear Lake just outside of downtown Orlando a few years back. On landing one of the rear struts that attached the floats to the fuselage failed, the float assembly buckled, the prop hit the water and the airplane immediately flipped over on its back. We were at the scene within 3 minutes and both occupants had already been rescued by someone on a party barge. Both the pilot and passenger were pretty shaken up but not much worse for the wear. I figure they nosed over somewhere around 60-70 knots, so the impact had to be brutal.
It took us 8 hours to haul the wreckage back to shore, get it disassembled, and laid out in the yard in pieces. It was quite the day. The pilot did much of the work, BTW, so his injuries didn't appear to be all that bad. Neither he nor his passenger required any medical attention. Shared only as a data point to this discussion.
<Marv>
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