because that would mean the Electra is down the bottom, intact waiting to be found
I must admit that I have never been convinced that
if the Electra had landed on the outer reef at Nikumaroro it would be now in small bits. The most likely thing to have happened is that if it had landed on the reef and lost an u/c leg it would simply have been picked up by the tide and washed out off the reef with minor structural damage and then slid down the steep outer reef slope until it either lodged somewhere or kept going to the bottom. Either way it would be out of harms way from wave action on the reef. Using the
Norwich City as some sort of surrogate destruction model is deceptive. The
Norwich City was very big heavy chunk of iron that relied on the sea when it was afloat to support its structure, once it part grounded on the reef, the hull was no longer evenly supported and it simply broke up as the waves lifted the floating portion setting up stresses which caused that to break from the part that was wedged on the reef. Rather like the
Titanic broke into two parts once the forward 2/3rds of it went under water. With 2/3rds of the flotation support gone the remaining 1/3rd which was still floating couldn't support the weight. Put simply, if you were a giant and picked up the
Norwich City by the stern it would snap off in your hand.
Now the Electra is a different type of structure. Like all aircraft of that form it is the wing centre section running out past the engines which provide the basic unit around which the fuselage, outer wing sections and tail are attached. This is very lightweight and rigid structure which has its strength further enhanced by having a stressed skin construction which is to say that the strength provided by the main centre section is reinforced by the aircraft skin which is rivetted to a framework extending from the centre section. As a structure it is supported in the air by the wings and on the ground it is supported by the undercarriage which is attached to the centre section and to the rear fuselage which is supported both by the centre section and the stressed skin. Unlike the
Norwich City the Electra's structure is soundly supported and strong whether in flight or just sitting on the ground. The
Norwich City is only a sound structure if it is afloat or in a dry dock with carefully placed frames to support all of the hull. If you were a giant and picked up the Electra by the tail nothing would break off because the structure itself is capable of supporting the unsupported parts - otherwise the fuselage would break in half once it sat on its undercarriage. If you attached wheels to the front and rear of the
Norwich City and attempted to sit it on them it would promptly break its back.
So if the landing on the reef was relatively normal it would survive in one piece, then be washed off with minimal damage and quickly sink nose first due to engine weight, again incurring minimal damage like loss of the undercarriage and aerials, below the zone on the slope where waves could batter it against the reef and cause more damage, with corrosion being the only enemy. I'm only offering a hypothesis here, I remain unsold on the reef landing because as with all the other theories it is yet to be demonstrated with hard evidence. But if it is there I would expect it to be relatively intact excluding the corrosive action of the sea water.