Timothy McNamara is the name that comes up as the one presenting the video evidence.
It showed the plane coming into land, the sound of the engine failing, and the plane trying to gain altitude before making a sharp left-turn and attempting to swing around.
Pretty sure that is describing pulling up and a steep turn, which given the altitude and situation would be considered an 'extreme maneuver'. From the ATSB report he pulled up and rolled into a 40 degree angle of bank turn to the left, which he then saw a sand dune and tried to then kick in more rudder to drag the aircraft around the turn while at around 100ft, then with the stall warning intermittently sounding lost control hitting the sand at 60 degrees AoB. So the pilot was at low altitude, high bank angle and low speed and kicking in rudder to a large out of balance situation, I don't think that sounds like a reasonable response to an engine failure. It does not take a specialist to really explain that, also the pics taken show beach ahead of the aircraft at the time of the engine failure, not open water, yes the chance of ending up in the water was there, but definitely not more risk than trying to turn back over unknown terrain at 100 ft.