It’s astounding that in an operation of that complexity that no one would have thought to get the story straight on cause of death. All the conflicting reports make it look extra suspicious. Or do you suppose that was deliberate? That way if there were ever a flaw pointed out in one version, they could immediately drop it and go to a different version.
If even a good researcher hears several of these counter-claims and is forced to list them, it could easily confuse an audience and become almost self-discrediting to the presenter. One has to have a lot of patience and diligence to get to the truth in such a situation!
One of the keys for this Cause of Death question was the Maui County Police PIO. He's the apparent instigator of the "died having been caught in the fuselage" story. However, close analysis makes clear that that important person in the scenario was being kept up to date throughout the scenario and was apprised of "Fuddy's" status among the living well long after the crash and into the phase of passengers being picked up by helicopters. Nowhere among the rescue radio chatter over two hours did anyone mention that someone had been left behind at the airplane, an area from which they all had successfully departed a half hour after the ditching. The PIO's lie about a cause of death was a concerted lie.
There's some evidence to suggest the Medical Examiner certainly knew the truth and when it might have been "suggested" that she report something other than the truth, she may well have hesitated, somewhat accounting for the ME report coming out only a month after the crash.
A medical doctor has a reputation to uphold, of course! I suspect in this case that the good doctor got--in writing--an indemnification to protect and compensate her for any fallout owing to her misrepresentation(s) in the matter. Indeed, Barry's "wife," who was staying with Oprah at her villa on Maui, a mere 30 miles away, extended her vacation stay on Maui until the very day the Medical Examiner delivered her report. Perhaps legal contract language was discussed. We don't yet know.
In parallel fashion, the pilot made many false claims that served to protect him if someone would suspect he was in on the planned scheme. Thankfully for a researcher, his repeated lies were made clear as they contrasted with unbiased evidence, such as the HD video's visible engine gauges and the engine audio. For example, both he and his lawyer said that after the engine had a catastrophic failure, the engine stopped. It was all too curious, therefore, to hear a smoothly running engine noise that accompanied the audio right into the water, at which time one hears the dramatic winding down from ~30k RPM to zero RPM in .6 seconds or so on the NTSB video evidence tape. MMM! Busted!
The pilot said he was rounding the turn to Honolulu with the craft at 300' when the engine went bang and stopped. That heading toward Honolulu, after taking off from RWY 5 at Kalaupapa, implied he would have had to begin that steep, 90-degree turn essentially the moment he lifted his wheels from the ground. Such a take=off profile would never have allowed his Part 135 Commuter Airline to be certified and is so unsafe that it's admission would probably cause him to lose his license, or that there would at least be an FAA hearing about "that little excursion." But, neither the FAA nor the NTSB ever mention it as a reportable issue! Crazy!
The truth is evident when one examines the passenger video. The pilot maintains runway heading for well more than an altitude of 500' before beginning a slow, seemingly "standard rate turn," exactly as one would expect from an even-modestly-well-trained and -experienced commuter airline pilot! In other words, he lied. Why would he have lied? If he'd told the truth, it would have been 100% clear to any commercial pilot that thought it through, that he should have been able to make a safe, power-off landing back at his departure airport 20 out of 20 times. Yet, this particular 18,000-hour pilot made the choice to risk 9 people's lives and limbs by putting his craft onto the water! Most people wouldn't do that without an indemnification of some sort, and sure enough, several mentions an insurance company pay-outs were later heard.
The answer of why people would risk so much (even with financial compensation) to tell lies "lies" in Hawai'i Revised Statutes 28-101 which allows the State Attorney General to write a "blank" check any way he or she might like toward the goal of protecting a potential court witness, which "Fuddy" undoubtedly was.
Just as they relish counting noses, "Who thinks he was born in Kenya? Now, who thinks he was born in Hawaii?" Then, after the "birther" term went viral, they decided they'd make fun of conservatives--ostensibly because they believed he was born in Kenya, which wasn't an accurate characterization of conservatives at the time. Almost all conservatives were then simply asking, "Where's the birth certificate (that would prove this once and for all)?" That was because of the general believe that one couldn't place trust any any of the false representations Barry and his "mother" had made in his lifetime.
Barry's cohorts twisted it, suggesting conservatives whom they would thenceforward call "birthers" believed--against the public narrative--that Barry was born in Kenya. They would forever deny the truth it would seem, even if there were several conflicting "truths," any one of which DS representatives dynamically could yet choose.