That shot of Fuddy was taken from some twenty feet away. This shot above of actual life jackets from this event, taken from perhaps an average of 7' away has two infant life jackets in the middle surrounded by five adult life jackets. Very few people would have been able to recognize those ones in the middle were infant life jackets, because they don't look all that different in size, do they?
But the key is, when they're inflated, they take on a distinctive shape. And that is truly hard to miss, try as you might, 4Zoltan!
If one reads the text surrounding the lower images, the average person (not going off the deep end) would not miss the import of the point of this graphic.
If Fuddy’s lifejacket had both chambers inflated (both cartridges punctured to inflate the jacket) there was no way to get the cartridge unpunctured when the USCG retrieved her. What the USCG retrieved CANNOT be the same lifejacket as Fuddy was wearing if the cartridges were both punctured when Fuddy wore the lifejacket.
At http://www.safeboatingcampaign.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2016-Inflatables.pdf it explains, “Inflatable life jackets are reusable, but, after each use, the CO2 cylinder needs to be replaced.” That’s because to get the jacket inflated, the CO2 cylinder has to be punctured, letting out the CO2 into the jacket chamber. Once the CO2 is punctured there’s no more air to inflate the chamber with again.
What the NTSB, in effect, is saying is that Fuddy was videoed in the water wearing two popped balloons (CO2 cartridges) but when she was retrieved from the water only one of the balloons was popped. Can’t be. You can’t un-pop a balloon.
And in the images of Fuddy next to the plane AND the images of her next to Yamamoto, both chambers are clearly seen as inflated. So at the point that she supposedly let go of Yamamoto’s hand to drift off by herself, both her balloons/cartridges were popped. There was no way for anybody to unpop one of the balloons so that one was still intact when the USCG lifted her from the water.
There is NO WAY that what the USCG retrieved from the water was the same Fuddy as is seen in the video, if the witnesses’ stories are accurate.
