Super F, when the floats are popped on a 76, the strut that holds open the flipper doors for the main gear gets severed, so the doors are free to flap (and stops them from puncturing the bags). Nobody would subsequently fly around with those doors flapping in the breeze. And anyway, there is no way to "suck up" the float bags once inflated. You have been duped.
Dick, I have tried in vain to find the newspaper article about Chucky's Second Swim, to refresh my tired brain on the facts. It may even have been the Westpac crew who had to come and remove the fishermen and the Polair crew. Don't remember, but there was a vague memory of them being retrieved by rescue squad people coming down the cliffs. Or maybe they were the ones who hooked the Squirrel up for the Kamov. Nearly 30 years ago, and I had left Polair by then.