Originally Posted by
Bell_ringer
Isn't 800ft a bit high to be popping floats and having to manage the drag?
Well yes, I would have thought so. But leave it to the judgement of the pilot at the time.
And as for the comment about not recovering much RRPM in the flare, it looked to me like he still had enough forward airspeed at splashdown to recover at least a couple more RRPM at the bottom.
What I'm finding difficult to comprehend is, the pilot must have known prior to 500' that the floats on one side of the aircraft had failed to inflate, so why continue to a water landing? Those passengers were all doomed from the moment the decision was made to continue with the water landing after the floats had failed to inflate properly.