[natch]

Landing safely was an unexpected outcome, so it’s remarkable (thus making it into the headline) that it came close to doing so. The right wording is highly context dependent. Here the “nearly landed” phrasing appropriately acknowledges the realistic expectations for the launch by those most in the know, the SpaceX team.

“Crash” would be totally appropriate in a different context with different expectations. But it would make less sense in this case.