Originally Posted by
Thirsty
Maybe you could dip it in fish oil to prevent the internal panels from rusting, and re-certify it?
My personal aircraft spent the night fully submerged under water in the ocean for around 24 hours after an unscheduled landing.
Luckily it is a fibreglass airframe and lived to fly again. It took 180 hours of repair work and now has a clause on the CofA for an annual salt water immersion check.
All the higher grade alloys and steel were fine after the event, however the thinner and cheaper materials were pretty much instantly destroyed. There’s so many bits like the rudder pedals for example were all rusty, brake calliper pistons filled with sand and corrosion, the master cylinder, control cables, all wiring looms, strobe lights, all avionics and instruments (managed to save all the air instruments due to an air-lock). Wheels were corroding, there was sand inside, seat fabrics were ok, then of course the engine which was stuffed anyway, plus the engine mount was rusting etc. Throttle cable etc, the list goes on!
All these problems and the aircraft was thoroughly flushed with 15,000 litres of water straight afterwards. Even if it was legit, I don’t think I’d personally be repairing a metal aircraft after an excursion in the ocean.
PS GT lives in Perth from memory so if it was him, maybe he visited the site and did the investigation himself.