Comments by "" (@BobSmith-dk8nw) on "USS Indianapolis - Guide 191" video.

@BB.61 Eh ... I think most of us just assumed that it couldn't take off again with all those people but since some people were asking about that I thought I'd be specific about it. I also posted a comment off the main link on this with the link to the Wikipedia Page on the Indianapolis loss - where I mentioned that this type of thing was done on other occasions by float planes that landed but then had to many people they were getting out of the water to take off again. There's some other incident where a PBY landed in rough seas to pick up a downed pilot but couldn't take off again in the current sea state. So the pilot and the PBY crew just sat in their Flying Boat which had a toilet and a kitchen and rode it out until the ocean flattened enough for them to take off again. All in a days work for that PBY crew. Sadly - that's one capability that has been lost with the end of Flying Boats in the USN & Coast Guard. .
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That PBY was NOT able to take off again, even after the survivors had been taken off by a destroyer - so it was destroyed. .
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@johnbuchman4854 Here's a list of the ones that still exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_Consolidated_PBY_Catalinas .
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First aircraft to find them was a Ventura. One of the PBY's that tried dropping rafts lost a raft in the drop and the others were to far away for the exhausted men to swim to - so the pilot landed the plane and brought 56 survivors aboard. The plane could not take off in this condition and had people sitting on the wings but it did get them out of the water and they were able to be aided by the PBY crew until a destroyer came along to pick them up. They couldn't get the PBY back up though so it was destroyed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Indianapolis_(CA-35) Landing and using their float plane as a life raft for survivors or downed air crew was something done on more than one occasion. .
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