>It flew over huge areas of empty fields, it certainly isn't safety.
Ok, but having it drop into water should increase the chance to retrieve less damaged parts to investigate then. I'd call this thoughtful, not indecivise.
Water will behave like concrete to an object of the size and weight of a car dropping at high speed (which seems to be the payload minus the solar panels). You can just see what happened to planes that crashed into water head on.
If it was built as a balloon, none of those panels have any structure to support significant wind loading (balloons above 40k feet feel zero appreciable wind). They would come apart like confetti a few seconds into free fall.
Ok, but having it drop into water should increase the chance to retrieve less damaged parts to investigate then. I'd call this thoughtful, not indecivise.