A YouTuber accused of deliberately crashing his plane to boost his channel’s traffic has agreed to plead guilty to obstructing a federal investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice has said.
Trevor Jacobs, 29, faces up to 20 years in prison after he deliberately destroyed a small single-engine plane that he left unmanned and crashed in California’s Los Padres National Park in 2021.
Jacob threw the boat mid-flight by skydiving and posted a video of the incident on his YouTube channel.
At the first interrogation by inspectors, he stated that the plane’s engine had failed, saying that he did not know the crash site. But his version did not convince either aviation specialists or the federal authorities. As it turned out later, Jacob did not try to contact air traffic control, restart the plane’s engine, or find a safe place to land.
The Youtuber, who describes himself as an accomplished pilot and skydiver, never intended to make his solo flight from Lompoc Airport in southern California to Mammoth Lakes in the Sierra Nevada mountains.as he confessed in his apology.
Prior to takeoff on November 24, 2021, Jacobs installed several video cameras in various parts of the monoplane and donned a parachute, making sure to be armed with a video camera and a selfie stick, according to officials.
Approximately 35 minutes after takeoff, he jumped out of the plane and began filming it plummeting into dry brush. After the 29-year-old parachuted down, he approached the crash site and took footage from the plane’s cameras.
Two days later, Jacobs notified the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) of the crash, but told NTSB and FAA investigators that he did not know where the wreckage was.
However, on December 10, 2021, Jacob and a friend flew to the crash site and delivered the wreckage to Santa Barbara County, where Jacob placed it in a barn. Over the course of several days, he destroyed aircraft parts and dumped them in trash cans at the airport and elsewhere, which authorities say he admitted to doing so to mislead investigators.
On December 23, 2021, he uploaded a video to YouTube titled “I Crashed My Plane”. The following April, after investigators exposed Jacob’s lies, the FAA revoked his pilot’s license.
The video of Jacob’s accident has been viewed nearly 3 million times.
Source: Guardian
Source: Kathimerini
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