I've never flown a plane by myself before but it would seem logical to me to try and put that plane down just off shore where there are no people. Is there any reason not too other than possible losing the aircraft.

You look for the best place, and solid ground is instinctively more attractive than water.  When the landing gear hits the water, it will pull the nose in, and stop you very fast, (like 60-0 in maybe 10 feet).  There is a good chance that the plane will flip on it's back.  If you're knocked out, or incapacitated, you're gonna die.

Having said that, landing in sand may not be a hell of a lot better, if you do it wrong.  You have to stay close to the water where it's wet.  A water landing is survivable, but given the choice, I think anyone would aim for the beach.

ETA: I don't believe anyone would knowingly land where there are people.  If you saw people on the beach, you would rule it out.  The water would not be that unattractive, particularly to someone who flew over it wit any regularity.  The option would already have been considered.

I always figured it would be better to leave the gear up on a retract if you were forced to land on a beach or water.  If it's the ocean beach, maybe try to land where the water is only 6" deep or so.

Correct.  The plane in question had fixed gear.   I would think it possible the the nose of a plane could actually plunge to greater than six feet.  I'm just guessing, of course, but I wouldn't want to hit bottom.

There have been several studies done that show it doesn't really matter what position the gear is in and that most GA planes DON'T immediately nose over upon water impact IF the landing was done correctly.

That said, I would have aimed for the beach just like the accident pilot did. All reports show the person killed was hit by debris and there is NO WAY the pilot would've expected that to happen. None of us was there, so who are we to judge either person?

I remember an incident where a pilot was attempting to land on a golf course fairway and the golfers steadfastly refused to move out of the way- one even stated he wasn't going to interrupt his game to move! The pilot made a low-level course change and DIED as a result.

From the flack the accident pilot is getting here, I'm guessing all pilots should just die when something happens to the plane. Got news for ya: THIS pilot ain't gonna die; I'm gonna do everything I can NOT to.

Links please, I'd like to read those.

My part 135 ground school in Alaska had 5 days of "don't do x,y, or z as it will kill you". Each specific case was backed up with very graphic pictures. One of the scenarios was putting a tricycle gear in the water.  Our instruction was to grab the strut by the windscreen so that if you weren't incapacitated by the impact you'd have a reference for when, not if, the plane flipped.

no flack, no judgement, just wondering if there was a reason to take that action as opposed to the other.

this accident, I'm waiting to hear about the debris aspect.

ditching, gear down causes plane to stop fast on first touch, generally nose up near stall. Gear up apparently causes them to skip and then hit even harder nose down. Seems screwed either way.
Landing in soft sand, you are going over onto your back unless you have tundra tires.
wet sand, say 50/50 the same result?

My 135 training in Alaska said never fly singles beyond glide range of shore. As for twins, to not worry about ditching because if we ended up in the soup we'd simply freeze to death anyway. But statistics show a low probability of flipping a fixed gear tricycle configured aircraft if flown into a full stall ditching. You can google a few videos and lots of pics of the aftermath. They all look pretty similar. Aircraft floating in one piece, right side up. The majority are survivable. It seems the key to surviving one is simply realizing you're going to have to do it and making some effort to fly it correctly. If you simply crash, unprepared, into the water, you're toast. If you do something resembling a wings level landing, you'll most likely be fine. Barry Schiff wrote a pretty good article about this.
A few excerpts:

"The Coast Guard does recommend that a ditching be made with the landing gear retracted, but this should not be construed to mean that retractable-gear aircraft are more suitable for ditching than fixed-gear aircraft. Just the opposite may be true. Of the 104 ditchings made in U.S. waters during a recent three-year period, half were made in retractable-gear aircraft, yet these accounted for two-thirds of the fatalities that occurred during splashdown. This apparent paradox, however, does not suggest extending the gear for a ditching. What the statistics probably indicate is that, since retractables generally have higher stall speeds than fixed-gear aircraft, they usually are landed somewhat faster and subjected to greater deceleration forces."

"Those who have ditched slow, fixed-gear aircraft, however, report that the main gear digging in during initial impact prevents the aircraft from skipping and subsequently striking the water in a stalled, nose-low attitude. The aircraft simply decelerates rapidly with the nose burrowing only slightly. Fixed-gear proponents claim this is safer than risking the secondary, nose-low impact frequently associated with retractables."

My preferred aircraft for ditching would probably be something like a Cherokee. Slow as possible (which probably means fixed gear) and a low wing for as low a CG as possible. Get an airplane with a real high CG like the famous vid of the Cessna on amphibs landing with his wheels accidentally down and it sure will flip. But a slow, low wing plane, with a fixed tricycle gear is highly survivable.

I did a lot of offshore cruising off the East coast back in my "flying is fun" Days.   My plan was always to splash just offshore of the bathers, if the beach was full.     If there was room on the beach, that's where I would have gone.  

It's impossible to say if this guy made the correct judgement.    Fast changing environment, and you get exactly one chance to get it right.

I was reading a news article on this.  USA Today.  The comments were filled with calling this pilot a retard, murderer, selfish elisit asshole who would now down kids to save his hide and the plane.  It was disgusting.

You obviously haven't been in the GD thread.  

I think he must've been gliding in as I walked away from the beach on my way back to the airport. If there had been a seat at the bar for my girlfriend to have a drink, I might have seen it. The lady at the counter of the FBO was helping to coordinate and do her job at the FBO as well. I overheard what she was reporting on the phone. From what I remember her repeating, the pilot called CTAF stating that he was not going to make the field. She said she asked for his tail number; he responded, and then did not respond to souls on board. My guess is that he switched to guard or approach. It was a hot day and the walk back to the airport in the heat had us sitting at the FBO cooling off a bit. I saw BayFlite coming in about 15-20 minutes later and I avoided the area on departure.

The accident made the front page of the newspapers in Tampa. My understanding is that beach is remote and mostly empty -- probably had there been a few more people, there would have been more warning. From the photos that I saw of the accident, it looks like the nose gear collapsed. I suspect that, while this could've been from landing in the sand with a lot of speed, it was probably because he came down hard. Cherokees aren't the best gliders and they drop like a rock when you get a little slow.

I do not understand the hostility that I'm seeing towards the pilot; I don't think he ever saw those people.

I understand it, it's allot of non flyers having zero clues about flying in general, makes me sick to see this garbage from idiots. I normally just ignore the idiots.

I used to beach run from Oceanside down towards San Diego bay area, would take people for a fun ride, and was warned for many years about low flying along the beaches, just outside the wave line, to keep that 1000 feet separation from the people and boats, I would always take a zoom climb up and around any boats found along the way. Then when returning the various aircraft, normally a Decathlon or Citabria, back to the FBO I'd wipe the salt off the prop. Got kidded about how I got so much salt on it many times. On any sunny day, we would pass other flyers doing the same thing, with the good old wing wave and right turns for avoidance, landing lights were the norm also. We did that back in our invincible days lol.
Still fly Super Decathlons and Citabria's when I can find them. Got a Pitts S1 in my shop waiting to be covered and one day hangered somewhere local.

Oh on those days when I did get right down near the water at full cruise, I'd trim up a bit so if my mind wandered the plane would go up if I relaxed my forward pressure on the stick, it's a rush down low, and to think some military jocks get paid to do that stuff.

Mine did too but we both know that's not reality.

Speak for yourself, kemosabe. On my OE, when my chief pilot saw me head gps direct from Point Lay to Point Hope he made it clear right then and there to never attempt it in the 207. And he was damn serious about it too. So I followed that rule religiously. Even in the winter time when it was solid pack ice. But that was for different reasons.

And to think I used to fly my old 182 to the Bahamas on a regular basis... the whole key to doing it is preparation.

Preparation and a little luck in the event you do have an unplanned event with an engine.  I don't fly away from glide distance.

I think that flying to the Bahamas with a raft on board where there's a lot of boat traffic, provided nothing eats you and you don't drown on egress, and flying over water in Alaska are a bit different. The biggest danger I perceive in the Bahamas trip is a thunderstorm building and engulfing you.

Yeeeaaahhhh.  They aren't comparable in the slightest degree.

You're absolutely right- Florida and Alaska flying isn't comparable, but the premise is the same: being prepared.

When I flew in Alaska, I had a kit that contained necessary survival gear and if I flew over large bodies of water that included an exposure suit that I wore the whole flight; in Florida I had a raft, EPIRB and life vests for over water routes.

Your right really. The problem for us is that in order to be prepared like that we'd have needed to pack an expensive and heavy inflatable raft big enough for 7 people. It just wouldn't be worth it considering all I needed to do most of the time was take a 10 minute diversion over the shoreline rather than cutting over the bays. We were usually pretty packed to the gills as it was. And then even the raft wouldn't be enough to honestly assist you in surviving. So then we'd all need dry suits too. Just not worth it.
The reason we avoided it in the winter time was because those shorelines were popular places for polar bears to make their dens. Some of those bays were infested with bears. So even though the water may have been covered with pack ice there were commonly compression ridges throughout it that would make a safe landing unlikely. Polar bears, being naturally curious and perpetually hungry, were known to explore aircraft accidents. That's bad juju. So we were told that forced landings in the winter should include every attempt to end up as far inland as possible. Most of us carried hand cannons, but I still wouldn't want to try and rely on it.

Twins for the win.

From the beginning of my training I was taught that it was my choice to fly, and if I ever had to crash, I was not to take anyone out that didn't choose to be involved with my aircraft (bystanders on the ground.)  If that meant having to pick my second or third choice of landing spot/crash site...so be it.  My private instructor taught me this, my instrument instructor taught me this, my commercial instructor did as well.  I think a lot of people used to get that instruction, and I think it stemmed from instructors that still believed in the "captain goes down with the ship" mentality.  I taught my students the same and I still fully agree with it.

I think that is where a lot of the consternation comes from.  These 2 people chose to fly and ended up making a decision that killed 2 other people as a result.  If 2 people had to die that day, it should have been the 2 in the plane.  Do I think they did it on purpose?  Not at all, but it clearly wasn't the right decision if the people on the plane lived and those on the ground died.

It may have been an accident, but it was still the pilots' fault and they should be held civilly liable for their decisions.

So let me flip that on its head... What if the pilot didn't see the victims? Should the lawyers still get their 1/3 of his retirement, house, cars, wages, etc?

I agree with with M82...

I was taught- a long time ago, by some old-school instructors- to get the plane on the ground as safely as you can, saving your life and that of any passengers.

Yes, you look for somewhere that's as free of bystanders as you can, but if there is little choice IN THE PILOT'S MIND, you land where you can. The accident pilot stated he didn't see anyone; in this incident, NONE of us know the truth to that statement, so making statements like the "captain goes down with his ship" and make a noble sacrifice of himself AND his passengers are ludicrous and uncalled for. You can tell your students that drivel all you want, but I doubt very seriously any will take it into consideration if they are ever faced with a similar situation.

Chances are very good that a line of slimy lawyers have queued up to sue the poor guy and I'll guarantee unless he is a sociopath, he is absolutely horrified by what happened and may never fly again.

What is slimy about it? The guy was responsible for killing two people.  Just because it may have been an accident doesn't make him not liable civilly.  Should I not have made the teenage girl that rear ended my car pay for it because she said she didn't see me stopped at a red light?  I know she didn't mean to hit me, but she did, and that has consequences.  She also chose to not have insurance... Hope this pilot was smarter than that.

And if my students choose to ignore my advice, so be it, but if something like this were to happen to them, I would hope they could realize they are going to be held accountable for their actions and be able to live with the consequences.  Financial and otherwise.

Are you going to claim that the pilot had to put it down there due to negligence?  A driver not paying attention to the road in front of them is negligent--the pilot putting a malfunctioning aircraft on a beach???

And also, lest we forget.... Cars operate in two dimensions. Aircraft operate in three. Apples to oranges, especially because aircraft aren't made out of glass, so it's sometimes hard to see what's below you. The pilot was engine out, most likely pitched up for glide (meaning the cowl was blocking his view forward), and trying his best to save those souls on board. It was a tragic accident, perfect shitstorm of events, and short of a video from the cockpit appearing somewhere, no way to prove negligence in his approach and ditching area.

The fact that people are so keen to lawyer up and try to bleed each other dry monetarily at the smallest slight is one of the big reasons why GA is nearly dead, it costs $50-100k+ to get into the flying profession, and why this country is circling the drain faster and faster every day.