I admit that I had guessed that. To turn a plane upside down in a below deck hanger with so little damage, with the height of the hanger being little if any more than the wingspan takes a lot of doing.
Not really.
It was the USN practice from at least the introduction of the Lexingtons to service in 1928 until late 1942 to carry spare aircraft "triced" (i.e. hung / suspended) from the hangar roof either fully assembled or partially dismantled according to type. For monoplane types the fuselage could be fitted between the overhead deck beams leaving only the wings / lower fuselage to impact the 17ft 3in clear hangar height under the beams on a Yorktown.
The last USN carrier class designed to trice aircraft into the hangar overhead was the Essex. The Midway class, with the weight of the armoured flight deck to account for, was designed with an aircraft storage area aft of the main hangar. By the time they began to complete in 1945, this was simply treated as additional hangar space.
From looking at the photo, the forward end of the fuselage / cowling is probably more heavily damaged than the tail, which would suggest it fell first. Photo probably taken during the recovery process rather than immediately after the fall. Maybe lowering it onto its back first was the best way of clearing the problem.
This is a photo of the Enterprise hangar deck from Oct 1941. Note the TBD and SBD tricked into the hangar roof in the background.
This is from the Damage Report of CV-7 Wasp and explains why the practice was ended.
"Stowage of Aircraft in the Overhead
Bays of the Hangar
47. It has been noted in paragraphs 4, 14 and 39 that
the tricing arrangements for four planes triced to the over-
head in the forward portion of the hangar carried away be-
cause of shock and permitted the planes to crash onto other
aircraft parked on the deck. The plane gasoline tanks could
not have escaped damage and gasoline must haye spread into
the hangar. This gasoline was unquestionably the origin
of the fir6 in the hangar.
48. War experience on other carriers subjected to bombing
attack has demonstrated that fires among triced aircraft
are not only apt to occur but that such fires are very diffi-
cult to control and extinguish because of the overhead loca-
tion. Fires among triced aircraft occurred on both ENTERPRISE
and HORNET, and in both cases were difficult to extinguish.
49. The dangers of overhead stowage for planes have been
recognized since the early days of the present war, and on
21 March, 1942 the Secretary of the Navy approved the design
characteristics for the CVB41 class which s-tated, "reserve
airplane stowage to be provided, if practicable, on the same
level as and adjacent to the ends of the hangar to elimina~e
plane s towage overhead".
50. Overhead plane stowage has been omitted on some of
the vessels of the CV9 class because of the strengthening
of the flight deck required to permit operation of the latest
types of heavy planes. strengthening involved the addition
of girders under the flight deck which prohibited the installa-
tion of tricing arrangements. The removal of tricing arrange-
ments from all other carriers in service or under construction
is now under serious consideration."
