It would seem the NTSB relied on information from the USCG personnel to speak about the life jacket that was cut from Fuddy after she had been hoisted from the water.
Note, the first USCG swimmer that came upon Fuddy in the water left her there without even performing CPR. For the swimmer to let that happen according to protocols means he deemed her as obviously having been dead for some time. Three minutes later, a local Hawaii TV news report announced that an unidentified person had died in the event. (It would seem someone listening to radio communications passed info along from what the swimmer saw and did.)
A mere forty minutes thereafter, as a different USCG swimmer came upon Fuddy—still in the water—and hoisted her into his helo, at which time she was pronounced “CRITICAL”! (Neat trick!)
I don’t see evidence of what I would call “sloppiness” with regard to the central events or contemporaneous pronouncements about those events. Were you thinking of something particular?
The airport is an open to the air, without locked doors to gain access to the restrooms, for example.
As N687MA departed that day, at least two people on the airport watched it taxi away. The normal airport time of closure was 15 minutes or so thereafter, 3:30pm HST.
I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt even though I was all over this back when it happened. We see she had on a properly inflated life vest so somewhere along the way, someone either made a mistake or it was switched out. It couldn’t have been switched until she was on the rescue helicopter, not while surrounded by the other passengers.
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/24246422/exclusive-pilot-describes-discovering-molokai-plane-crash
“Lang also claims they “contacted the Moloka’i tower for clearance just before 3:30 p.m. Wednesday. They say the tower operator asked if they were able to hear an “ELT” or Emergency Locator Transmitter.” But when they landed at the airport 5 minutes later, there was no one around. IOW, there was at least one person in the tower who knew there had been a crash but disappeared from the scene within moments. Who called the Coast Guard and the fire department?”
And then #201 - “Especially weird since the CG was notified of the crash at 3:27 (which would make the report of departure of 3:15 rather than the scheduled 3:35 more in line) be some time after the crash) and the airport wasn’t supposed to close until 3:30. Makes you wonder just when the airport personnel closed up or if they had bothered showing up for work that day. Also makes you wonder if Fuddy had chartered the plane and Kawasaki had hung around all day and if he left the plane unattended.”