Good job hunting down 'the truth' but unfortunately our man has been asking the wrong people. For future reference Mr RedTop, the only person you need to ask is the station hairdresser, or if you can't manage that, go evesdropping in The Hive.
Anyway, to save you the hastle, here's what happened:
There had been loads of problems with this particular jet which had failed to stay fixed, but seeing as it was coming up to the end of it's life the Sgt suggested crashing it. This saved the lads on the sqn from recovering any serviceable bits of kit off the jet. The pilot had just had a crappy annual report, and needed to raise his profile, so he volunteered. However, as the Sgt had come up with the wacky plan, he had to sit in the back to make sure the plan went ahead. The decision to ditch at sea was twofold - firstly, it saved anyone from doing crash guard, and secondly the Sgt wanted to get rescued by Sea King (thereby getting two PAX trips in one day).
So there you have it, now that's enough nonsense for everybody, can we get back to normal now please?