The picture on the left shows the rear passenger doorway was three-quarters submerged while the passengers were still around the plane. The Lang-Thomson picture at right shows that even after the plane occupants abandoned the plane area, the water had not encroached any further onto the plane than when the passengers were around it.
However, another 30 minutes later, when the videographer let his lenses wander back to the plane we see other visitors to the plane, profuse bubbling around the engine, and other diver-related gear around the engine area. By this point we can see rescue/ruse/cover-up has gone completely off the rails! It has ceased to be a good ruse.
Another picture shows even more clearly that the hapless passengers that were still a half hour away from being hoisted into helicopters were not the only ones on the scene. At least three shadowy figures are seen there at the airplane and they seem to have brought something like a green slip-n-slide with them, perhaps to be used for transportation. It’s just too bad the focus of those other, plane-visiting folks wasn’t to rescue our hapless plane occupants and bring those needing medical attention from among them to dry land. Those seriously injured passengers could have been to Molokai General Hospital in 20 minutes but were made to wait another 30-55 minutes in the water before they would begin their flight over to Honolulu Queen’s Hospital, making for about an hour and a half wait, all told.
It's a shame the NTSB couldn't get behind all of this and give it a proper airing before P&WC, Textron Aviation and all their customers and shareholders would see their reputations besmirched and wallets flattened.