Title made my hair stand on end. Thankfully it was far from tragic.
The grandson of he great Claudius Dornier, Iren Dornier, owns and flies this silver beauty. He wrote an interesting book on how he acquired and managed to run a successful business with it (Mission Dream).
I had the opportunity to inspect a Do-24T in Munich, it is built with multiple full sealing bulkheads, 7 at a guess. It looks like only 1 was compromised so it was unlikely it would sink (unlike the PBY-6a that sank off Florida coast)
Claudius Dornier preferred to use sponsons for aquatic stability instead of tip floats. In operation the Dornier boats where able to negotiate much rougher seas than tip float types.
I read of a story where a Sunderland found some downed RAF airmen but could not land in heavy seas, they where able to attract attention of Luftwaffe Do-24 Sea-Rescue which successfully rescued the crew and took off, where upon the two parted ways (maybe with a wave).
Notice in the video the left wing tip was fully submerged in water, but righted itself.
Very impressive. Glad there were no injuries and only superficial damage by the look of it. I was under the impression that this aircraft had been grounded in the Phillipines?
IIRC, the Philippines did not/could not properly insure security of its aircraft, or maybe due to terrorist activities, so lost some international certificate and that would forbid any Philippine registered aircraft in Europe. Iren was able to get the ATT registered in Germany last year.
(On a side note, the tail plane is a scaled up Do-17 one. )
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