This Puentes is being a bit dramatic. Geez, I dunno, if I was being weighted down because of my long sleeved shirt and steel toed boots, I might have considered taking them off. He's a young guy but a 70 year old man swam to shore. If he'd taken off his boots, he could have gone with the 70 year old and Kawasaki wouldn't have had to get him a seat cushion. After the initial splash, there was nothing to worry about. Puentes was fine and so was everyone else (except Fuddy later). He was doing well enough to keep his camera out of the water and film everything so no sympathies.
The good thing Puentes did was have his camera on. That proves, again, the plane sank fully intact with basically no damage. Funny how it was in a million mangled pieces when it was brought up, hmmm.