Not judging the circumenstances but I fail to see pilot obsessions with forces landing in crampy runways, populated cities, full beaches and busy roads...instead of going for open water & empty fields, at least there will be no last minute zig to avoid a house, car, human or bikini and one will be guarateed there will be no legal follow up on him or his estate
I was not there so can't judge the guy intentions, maybe he felt it will be a 100% death ditching 100m into water? I doubt it would have changed anything to his survival chances given his nice text book ditching but 100m in water would have guarateed 100% life to other people, it was pure luck
Of course, one has to draw a line but this ditch was too close IMHO to kill other people with no added value in saving the pilot, it was about recovering the aircraft, I am sure the guy flew zillions of hours out of range well over open water far away from the beach & sand and he is surely skilled to cope with +100m ditch offshore, one has to draw a line and you gota do what you gota do !
The other thing is many details are not visible untill bellow 100ft, you have to "guess them" on your field selection way before field landout, maybe expected for flying gliders but probably too much airmanship to ask in a heavy 5T warbird with dead stick...
PS: me, another keyboard warrior hitting on FB videos from the comfort of his couch