Marty says:
"Our late oceanographer, Howard Alldred, thought the plane would have probably have been turned into aluminum sand by now."
I've disagreed with Howard on several of his thoughts, and this is one of them. I don't think we've ever found evidence to support this notion that the aircraft was largely ground up and distributed as sand down current.
"I don't think anyone in TIGHAR expects to find much more than bits and pieces--if we're lucky!"
I for one am willing to go out on a limb and say that I think that there will be large sections of the electra found. While pieces of it may be torn off during the landing, or afterwards, I imagine that once the main body was floated off the reef by the rising tide / wave action, the destruction would have largely stopped leaving substantial portions intact to be found, hopefully by side scan sonar during this expedition.
Looking forward to finding out if I'm right. :-)
Andrew