[Cooper911SC]

Sadly, I can chime in here. In Dec. of 2014 my wife hydroplaned in our '95 993. 230,000 mile car, has been well maintained.

Both airbags deployed as intended. She walked away.

Full story: Traveling EB on CA22 around 9:30pm. Light rain falling sporadically, ground was wet.

She was traveling at 60mph in the right lane. (Many typical CA drivers flying past at 80mph)

Just about at City Drive exit the car hydroplaned to the left crossing almost 2 lanes. She steered back to the right and the car started to rotate.
Sliding back across into concrete K rail on right shoulder left front corner of the car first.

Finished rotating and then slid backwards along the K rail into a section of Armco bolted to it.

993 chassis is twisted enough that the backlight shattered and the sunroof sticks up about 1/8" out of roof at leading edge.

She is a short petite lady, sits close to the steering wheel.
When she called me to tell me about the wreck one of the first things I asked her was if her face was ok from the airbag. She had light roseace on one cheek and the sleeve on her rain coat was burned. Otherwise ok.

I have talked to friends and others over the years who have suffered broken noses, black eyes, and burns from airbags deploying. (Obviously beats some other alternatives)...

The 993 did its job very well. Sad to see it written off this way, but WAY MORE IMPORTANT TO HAVE MY WIFE!

We replaced the 993 with another '95 within a year.

And YES the space saver spare does function as part of the front crash structure! Glad to post pics of our "out of round" unit.

Amazingly no other vehicles were involved in the accident!

Cooper