Here's a thought on the Catalina crash. Catalinas and most other amphibious 'boats didn't take too kindly to attempting a water landing with their wheel landing gear down. This led to it "stubbing its toe" as it were, and plowing into the water nose low at high speed, with structural failures, ruptured fuel tanks and general disintegration. Crews that had been flying non-amphibious flying boats and crews that had been flying land based patrol planes both sometimes landed their shiny new amphibs in the wrong configuration, which could be merely embarrassing on land, but disastrous at sea.