He shouldn't have called the police, otherwise he might've been successful.
If he didn't want 'the police' to think he'd gotten into actual plane-crashing-dying-in-fireball trouble, he could have just
landed the plane instead of making it crash. He wanted to stage his death, but it didn't work out because the wreckage was recognizable enough to see the door was open and his corpse wasn't in it. If he wanted to disappear, why rent an
airplane instead of, you know, crossing the border and growing a beard?
Still, nice try. He might be a bastard, but at least he's a bastard in style.