I've done several beach landings, one precautionary. In my experience it's very easy to see who is there and whether you have a clear area in which to land.
It seems likely to me that the pilot of that aeroplane could see a straight line down the beach with nobody in it and selected that.
Of course, only the pilot himself knows what he or she would have done had that clear bit of beach not been available. Certainly I hope and believe I'd put it in the water, risking my life to protect other people's, but it would be arrogance in the extreme to say with certainty that that's what I'd actually do in such an emergency.
G