No, that's exactly what happens. Most of the time. There was a couple of times when SpaceX accidentally soft landed a Falcon 9 first stage into the ocean, and

No, that's exactly what happens. Most of the time. There was a couple of times when SpaceX accidentally soft landed a Falcon 9 first stage into the ocean, and had it just float around. They're yet to do that trick with Starship though. EDIT: Of fucking course.