Perhaps we should conclude that an Olympic snowboard competitor may not be the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree when it comes to thinking through the consequences of his actions.
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On 2022-04-11, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration revoked Trevor Jacob’s private pilot license for having performed this stunt.
A copy of the FAA letter is posted on AVweb, “FAA Revokes Certificate Of YouTuber Who Crashed Plane”. The revocation also prohibits reapplication for a new pilot license for a period of one year (really—just one year, after deliberately crashing an airplane in a wilderness area with high fire risk?).
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Trevor Jacob, maker of the “I Crashed My Airplane” video, has agreed to plead guilty to one felony count of “destruction and concealment with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation, a crime that carries a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison”. Here is a press release from 2023-05-11 from the U.S. Department of Justice, “Santa Barbara County Man Who Deliberately Crashed Airplane for YouTube Video Admits to Obstructing Federal Investigation”.
A YouTuber pilot has agreed to plead guilty to a felony charge for obstructing a federal investigation by deliberately destroying the wreckage of an airplane that he intentionally crashed in Santa Barbara County to gain online views, the Justice Department announced today.
Trevor Daniel Jacob, 29, of Lompoc, agreed to plead guilty to one count of destruction and concealment with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation, a crime that carries a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.
A plea agreement and a one-count information charging Jacob were filed Wednesday in United States District Court in Los Angeles. He is expected to make his initial court appearance in the coming weeks.
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Jacob drove the wreckage to Lompoc City Airport and unloaded it in a hangar. He then cut up and destroyed the airplane wreckage and, over the course of a few days, deposited the detached parts of the wrecked airplane into trash bins at the airport and elsewhere, which he admitted in his plea agreement was done with the intent to obstruct federal authorities from investigating the November 24 plane crash.
On December 23, 2021, Jacob uploaded a YouTube video titled, “I Crashed My Airplane,” that contained a promotion of the wallet and depicting him parachuting from the plane and the aircraft’s subsequent crash. Jacob admitted in his plea agreement that he intended to make money through the video.
Jacob further admitted he lied to federal investigators when he submitted an aircraft accident incident report that falsely indicated that the aircraft experienced a full loss of power approximately 35 minutes after takeoff. Jacob also lied to an FAA aviation safety inspector when he said the airplane’s engine had quit and, because he could not identify any safe landing options, he had parachuted out of the plane.
The video that from the stunt that landed Jacob in the soup, “I Crashed My Airplane”, is still up on YouTube and has garnered, to date, 4.2 million views.
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