Actually he made contact with his satellite cell phone and in his last call, with the rescue teams, they actually heard him hit the ocean. The weather was bad, with up to 65km/h winds. That was more than 24h ago.

Too bad for him. It seems he didn't know how to use his GPS (so he couldn't give precise readings to the rescue teams).

The moment he realized he was going to the ocean he should have blown off his balloons to hit the ground, but he initially assumed he would be able to fly above the rain clouds, as he told when he left ground (it was already raining), but alas, he didn't.

He must have hit the sea in very bad weather and quite a distance from the shore.