This is mainly a remains and black box recovery effort. The remains for obvious humanitarian reasons and the black boxes for the information they will provide on the causes of the crash. If it was aboard and can be located in the debris field, recovery of classified material would be accomplished for accountability purposes. Beyond these, item recovery would have to yield something critical to understanding the accident (say, like a prop that had its blades reversed or a nacelle showing evidence of a turbine explosion).
According to the report, the Navy only really knows where the black box pingers are and their depth. How intact the aircraft is will determine what pieces if any are brought to the surface.
Could go either way.
During the 1980s, the fuselage of a USMC CH-53 was lifted relatively intact from the waters between mainland Japan and Okinawa to recover the bodies of the 20 or so Marines who died while making a logistics flight between MCAS Iwakuni and MCAS Futenma (sp). However, those waters were, relatively speaking, quite a bit shallower and it crashed at a relatively low speed and altitude. If the C-2 impacted at a higher speed and/or went in from a higher altitude, they are going to be searching for body parts, etc. among a lot of badly fragmented aircraft parts scattered on the bottom. If the bottom is mountainous (like that passenger jet crash in the mid-Atlantic some years ago), the search will be vertical as well as horizontal.
Good points all.
Yep and the reason there were 20 was the other bird had the General's brass furniture. Didn't spread load the pax.