YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

Critically, he is not going to jail for intentionally crashing the plane. He is being jailed "for obstructing a federal investigation by deliberately destroying the wreckage of an airplane."

Had he cooperated, it's plausible to see him getting away with a license revocation and fine. Instead he did this:

"In the weeks following the plane crash, Jacob lied to investigators that he did not know the wreckage’s location. In fact, on December 10, 2021, Jacob and a friend flew by helicopter to the wreckage site. There, Jacob used straps to secure the wreckage, which the helicopter lifted and carried to Rancho Sisquoc in Santa Barbara County, where it was loaded onto a trailer attached to Jacob’s pickup truck.

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 was done with the intent to obstruct federal authorities from investigating the November 24 plane crash."

Note, however, that this doesn't mean that he would have gotten away with it if he'd cooperated. It means that the federal prosecutor decided that the act of obstruction would be easier to prove, since the intentional nature of those acts is much more self-evident.

Is there a law that says you can't intentionally crash a plane? Honest question. There isn't a law that prevents you from intentionally crashing other vehicles. Just around property damage and endangering other people.

There isn't a law that prevents you from intentionally crashing other vehicles. Just around property damage and endangering other people.

You can probably do whatever you want with your private vehicle on your private land. But on public roads you need a license to operate, and you must operate the vehicle in certain prescribed ways.

Similarly you can probably do whatever you want with your private air vehicle while it sits on your private land, but when you are operating in public air space then you must operate in the ways prescribed by your pilot license.

can probably do whatever you want with your private vehicle on your private land

Sort of.

Own plane, own land and a filed flight path should satisfy the FAA's requirements, though you may also need to take active measures to ensure your private land is clear of things that could be harmed. After that, there is the environmental component. Our influencer here not only inundated the crash site with leaded avgas, but likely also sprinkled it all the way to the hangar. Given the track record of decision making, I have no hope he disposed of the parts properly, either.

Own plane, own land and a filed flight path should satisfy the FAA's requirements, though you may also need to take active measures to ensure your private land is clear of things that could be harmed.

If he had a private air field/airport and "landed" (crashed) the plane on his air field, then that could be argued, but there's still the fact that he bailed out of the airplane and left it in an uncontrolled state, in which case there's probably some kind of 'reckless' charge that could be thrown at him.

Otoh people crash stuff on the reg (crash tests, stunts, …) and an unoccupied plane should be quite predictable. If you can demonstrate that you secured the area and it is large enough there is low-to-no chances of the plane getting out from bailout conditions everyone woukd likely be satisfied.

you can demonstrate that you secured the area and it is large enough there is low-to-no chances of the plane getting out from bailout conditions

You are probably underestimating how wast that area must be to do that.

pray tell how can I be under-estimating when I am not estimating anything in the first place.

Given the track record of decision making, I have no hope he disposed of the parts properly, either.

Your instincts are correct:

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

law that says you can't intentionally crash a plane?

No. We do crash tests from time to time [1]. But at a minimum, you must control--not even just own--the terrain you're crashing into. (It's also not solely a Part 91/FAA matter. The EPA, for example, would also want to have a say.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Boeing_727_crash_experime...

What does "control" mean, technically?

I have an intuitive sense of what you're pointing at with the Boeing 727 crash experiment, but how does the law phrase it?

What does "control" mean, technically?

"The power to govern, manage, direct, or oversee something" [1]. So if I own/possess acres of unfenced grasslands, I'd need to put up fences or people to monitor the property or at the very least crash site's borders.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/control

It's a more specific definition in aviation -- think air traffic control. You need to actively make sure that there won't be any other flights near where you're intending to crash your plane which is tricky if you just bail at altitude and let it sail into terrain for YouTube.

If you want to crash a plane, you'd likely have to apply for/receive temporary flight restrictions over the area where you want to crash it so that ATC can ensure everyone else stays clear.

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/foa_html...

you'd likely have to apply for/receive temporary flight restrictions over the area where you want to crash it so that ATC can ensure everyone else stays clear

Correct. I was simply talking about control of the land underneath. Owning and controlling the land doesn't mean you have any rights to its airspace.

The Wiki page says:

    The site in Mexico was chosen because authorities in the United States would not allow the test to take place.

When you wrote "we", did you mean the United States?

Is there a scenario where intentionally crashing a vehicle on property that you do not have permission to crash a vehicle on isn't reckless endangerment/reckless driving? Except maybe steering away from the oncoming bus into the jersey barrier or something?

Is there a scenario where intentionally crashing a vehicle on property that you do not have permission to crash a vehicle on isn't reckless endangerment/reckless driving?

Arguably whenever you could expect that not crashing the vehicle would lead to a worse outcome. In the plane example, this might be true if you expect to loose control of the plane at some point (due to mechanical failure or force) and a controlled crash is the best option to avoid (possibly) impacting a more populated area. But I agree that this is a rare scenario.

I think implied here is also that putting yourself in that dangerous situation on purpose negates whatever goodwill claim you have to self-preservation. Or, at least, introduces more reckless endangerment/driving for which you are culpable.

I know there was at least one remote-controlled airliner intentionally crashed in the desert filled with crash dummies and stuff, though that was in an active partnership with the FAA

There isn't a law that prevents you from intentionally crashing other vehicles. Just around property damage and endangering other people.

Those two sentences don't make any sense next to each other. There's no way to intentionally crash your vehicle that doesn't include several other things for which their are specific laws for. One can't intentionally crash a car in the same way that you can intentionally swing a bat in your backyard without hitting anything.

Edit: Also, for what it's worth, it wasn't even his plane.

> One can't intentionally crash a car in the same way that you can intentionally swing a bat in your backyard without hitting anything

What exactly do you mean here? I've witnessed plenty of vehicle damage done on private ranchland from various obstacles, and in some cases, other family/friends' vehicles. If you wanted to drive your vehicle into a big rock on your own land, what exactly stops you?

Such a scenario isn't really relevant here, is it?

And you can't fly an airplane on your land because you don't own the air. He crashed a plane that wasn't his on land that wasn't his.

It probably falls under Careless or reckless[1] at the very least 14 CFR 91.13.

EDIT: Looks like user JumpCrisscross beat me to it.

1: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F...

So far, all of us are just guessing, so here's my guess:

What Trevor did would be considered an "aerobatic flight" [1]

"aerobatic flight means an intentional maneuver involving an abrupt change in an aircraft's attitude, an abnormal attitude, or abnormal acceleration, not necessary for normal flight."

He may have been technically legal on the FAA side, but reckless dumping of hazardous materials in the desert is probably an actual charge they could have nailed him on. Perhaps "operating a vehicle off an approved trail" type of charge, or some kind of wildlife violation / fire hazard are also what I would guess. Perhaps running afoul of some kind of parachuting laws as well, maybe having to file for that so other aviators know about it.

Someone below mentioned filing a flight plan, which has nothing to do with anything. Flight plans are to aid in search-and-rescue if you dont show up.

[1] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F...

[...]this doesn't mean that he would have gotten away with it if he'd cooperated[...]

If he'd stuck to the story that he just had an engine mishap would they have been able to prove that it was intentional?

They'd almost certainly have revoked his license to ever fly again, but filming everything you're doing isn't illegal.

Nor is wearing a parachute because you know you're a crappy pilot that'll bail out at the first sign of trouble.

General Aviation airplanes require an annual inspection (from an IA A&P mechanic -- that's airframe & powerplant with inspection authorization). My understanding is that the plane was out of annual (ie, bought as parts) and he fixed it up enough to fly. There are strict limits on what repairs you can do yourself without involving a licensed A&P mechanic. FAA actually does ramp checks on occasion to verify that your bug smasher has up to date registration and annual inspection. Regardless of how the flight ended, the flight shouldn't have happened in the first place and his PPL could be revoked for that alone.

Edit: this is wrong as pointed out below.

FAA doesn’t mess around with the maintenance regulations. If I remember correctly the A&P knowledge test requirement was to answer 99% of questions correctly, compared to something like 75% for a PPL (I might be way off but there was a large difference).

You're way off. Comically so. A&P passing grade is more like 70%. It's not a comparable figure to PPL ground school.

You’re right, but I’m wondering where my confusion comes from. I’m absolutely positive something required a much higher %. Maybe a different license or regs changed in the last decade or so?

I thought I remembered something like this— maybe it's a higher question count or lower time limit for e.g. commercial?

The FAA testing matrix seems to suggest all are 70% as of now[0]

[0] https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/2022-09/testing_matr...

Getting strong Mandela Effect vibes now… can’t find anything other than 70%, now or a decade ago. But I’m virtually certain I didn’t make something like this up :)

Are you thinking of ATPL (ATP in America I believe)?

Nice reply. For other readers, I needed to Google these terms:

IA: Inspection Authorized

A&P: Airframe & Powerplant

There are strict limits on what repairs you can do yourself without involving a licensed A&P mechanic.

Sure, you're right that this plane was clearly violating a myriad of maintenance violations. But maintenance violations aren't going to get you thrown in jail. They might get your license taken away and would definitely yield some fines, but not thrown in jail.

I am assuming of course this is on a personal GA plane (like the youtuber was using to fly himself). Skipping maintenance and/or doing it himself would have gotten him a few relatively small fines. He probably wouldn't have lost his license and certainly wouldn't have been thrown in jail for these.

Of course the rules would change significantly if this was a charter plane like Part 135, then things are more serious. He would have lost his license then, and maybe gotten some jailtime. Skipping or fraudulent maintenance on a part 121 (scheduled commercial airlines like United or Delta) would certainly yield jailtime.

Yes, he’ll certainly face punishment. But I don’t think he’ll go to prison (or perhaps a suspended sentence) if he cooperated.

Applying a bit of abduction, I see two narratives that track:

1. Some other illicit activity was going on in or around that plane.

2. The pilot thought he could make the whole mess go away by erasing physical evidence of the crash; his reasoning might be along the lines of "no evidence, no feds".

I find both equally credible. I'm stumped.

Never overestimate the intelligence of someone willing to jump out of a moving plane for clicks and views.

Never underestimate the propensity of a criminal to engage in multiple crimes.

I maintain it could go either way.

If he'd stuck to the story that he just had an engine mishap would they have been able to prove that it was intentional?

Isn't that what the black box is for?

The tech in that airplane is much closer to a 1935 tractor than it is to even a 1985 passenger car (which also didn’t have anything like a black box).

It's very unlikely that a private aircraft this small would have a 'black box' (either of the cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder variety). That said, the pilot in this case had incriminating evidence on board due to his own recording devices.

Yes, because nothing in the plane caused a loss of power.

And even if it did, he made no effort to resolve the issue.

Probably, because he was stupid enough to record a video with cameras in the plane. But there’s plenty of ways to achieve it which could pass as accidental:

Accidentally lean mixture (e.g., grab the wrong control). Set to use an empty fuel tank. Set the fuel valve to off or in between settings. With some preparation, destroy a spark plug or two, only enable those spark plugs in the air - extreme misfires will be obvious on video.

There are plenty of pilots who wear chutes (and there are special chutes which basically replace your seat) but he also had a fire extinguisher strapped to his leg which is not a normal occurrence.

It was pretty blatantly obvious from just the video.

The engine didn't just stop producing power, that would leave typically the propeller spinning, windmilling in the air. (unless the engine seized, but he was faking fuel starvation)

He put a bunch of effort into making sure the propeller actually stopped spinning, I think he had to actually reduce speed; Just so that your average YouTube viewer could clearly see the engine had stopped.

My understanding reading the original incident report, to my recollection, was that there was enough there that random grossly negligent youtuber trying to get clicks for an ad + a dozen cameras + parachute + not following safety protocol + not giving enough time of trying to restart before immediately bailing meant the beyond reasonable doubt conclusion would almost certainly be that this was premeditated.

If he'd stuck to the story that he just had an engine mishap would they have been able to prove that it was intentional?

In a normal setting, probably not. General-aviation aircraft don't have flight recorders. Helpfully for the investigators, however, this numpty decked his plane out in cameras. And then posted the video online. After he'd executed the cover-up.

Had he cooperated, it's plausible to see him getting away with a license revocation and fine.

Reminder of the quotation from Howard Baker (R-TN): “It is almost always the cover-up rather than the event that causes trouble.”

Though some would disagree:

There's this old line the wise folks in Washington have that 'it's not the crime, but the cover-up.'

But only fools believe that. It's always about the crime. The whole point of the cover-up is that a full revelation of the underlying crime is not survivable. Let me repeat that, the whole point of the cover-up is a recognition that a full revelation of the underlying bad act is not survivable. Indeed, the cover-ups are usually successful. And that's why they're tried so often. Just look at this administration [in 2007]. They're the ultimate example of this truth.

* https://web.archive.org/web/20071026022311/https://talkingpo...

the whole point of the cover-up is a recognition that a full revelation of the underlying bad act is not survivable

There are numerous counter-examples to this claim. In many cases, it's obvious because the cover-up is of a civil infraction.

I feel like the Toupee Fallacy is lurking around in this conversation. We know how many cover-ups are successful, and the ones we know about are nearly universally unsuccessful.

Not disagreeing. Just pushing back on cover-ups being rational. In many cases, the cover-up wasn't worth it. "Full revelation of the underlying bad act" would have been utterly survivable, even taking into account the odds of getting away with no consequence.

Guess some people like to play the odds. Rather than take 50% damage, they choose to gamble between 0% damage (cover up successful) and 100% damage (cover up failed and isn’t survivable) - they are equivalent in terms of expected value.

But they're not necessarily equivalent. If option a (0% damage) is equiprobable with option b (100% damage), then yeah, the expectation value is 50% damage. But if option b is 4 times more likely than option a, then the expectation value is 80% (1/5 *0 + 4/5*100 = 80). It's that misapprehension of the probabilities that is the error of the person failing to coverup a crime.

Just because there are only two possible outcomes doesn't mean that they are equiprobable. Not all coin tosses use a "fair" coin.

There are three outcomes in this hypothetical: don’t bother with the cover up (50% damage); successful cover up (0% damage); and failed cover up (100% damage). So the calculation is a bit more complicated.

"don't bother with the cover up" doesn't contribute to the probabilistic model. If I flip a coin, it can't come up "I didn't flip the coin".

Tangentially relevant, I have found that when people crash into my parked car, they universally attempt to cover up, and flee the scene. Inevitably they are on camera, and they end up paying for damage. This has happened multiple times. However, there is no extra punishment adminstered for the fleeing and the cover up. So (at least in Australia) you are universally incentivsed to try and coverup a vehicle hit and run, than you are to leave details. Sad.

You're right. To expand: don't bother is the null. Deciding to cover-up leads to one of two outcomes, the good one (you get away) and the bad (you get boned). You don't know which of those outcomes you'll get.

The percentages the comment you're responding to provides aren't probabilities, but damage fractions; 50% isn't a 50/50 likelihood, but 50% damage of the 100% case.

The three outcomes are:

* Successful cover up (0% damage).

* Failed cover up (100% damage).

* Don't bother (100% damage).

So if doing nothing and failing to cover up lead to the same result, you might as well give a shot at successfully covering up. Whatcha got to lose?

It is assumed not bothering is 100% damage because the screw up is apparently bad enough to warrant attempting a cover up.

In the UK it’s a crime to “flee the scene of an accident”, even if that accident was a minor scratch on a stationery vehicle.

It is the same in many other European countries. But I guess in case of minor scratches those laws belong to the most frequently broken ones... ;)

Yeah, my feel is that the underlying act was often enough survivable, but it didn't feel like it at the time. A cover-up attempt in state of panic is opposite of rational (except maybe in terms of calming your own nerves).

And it takes a steely set of nerves to calmly wait for the dice to finish rolling.

Panic tends to bias towards action.

Depends on the person. Panic has always biased me towards inaction: this is helpful in urgent circumstances (where waiting and thinking for a few minutes feels really bad, but is usually the right move unless someone's bleeding to death), but harmful in non-urgent circumstances (where there's only a few minutes' worth of thoughts to think about the situation, so waiting and thinking for a few months is completely counterproductive).

We know how many cover-ups are successful

Did you mean "we don't know"?

https://fairing.co/assets/images/blog/known-unknowns-matrix-...

Simple. Look at what was a conspiracy theory in the 80’s and turned into a “yeah we did that, so what” in the 2000’s re: the government?

The Dalai Lama literally pulled down a six figure paycheck from the CIA, for example. The government was, is, and will continue to spy on you.

The difference is that if something is successfully covered up for 10-20-30 years, by the time the public finds out about it nobody really cares.

Probably including Watergate which I believe was the inspiration for that quote. The underlying act was probably survivable. The coverup was not.

It’s worth mentioning that the Watergate coverup eventually failed because of a plane crash and the events set in motion due to it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Air_Lines_Flight_553

Woodward and Bernstein were already investigating (for many months prior to the crash), and Nixon's later coverups (after March 1973) don't seem to be connected to the crash in any way.

Perhaps if the crash hadn't happened, the people/money on board could have ensured McCord (and the other plumbers) would have stayed quiet instead of telling Judge Sirica that it was a White House operation. Without some significant evidence of intent for the passengers, though, this is a pretty soft argument.

I guess. WaPo thinks it was pretty significant:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/12/08/dorothy-hu...

What’s clear, though, is the influence the crash had on the arc of the Watergate scandal. It was a crucial turning point. Howard Hunt, worried his children would be orphans if he spent years in prison, asked his lawyer to meet with Colson and request a pardon from Nixon after a year of incarceration if Hunt would plead guilty and avoid trial.

Colson spoke with Nixon, as recorded in White House tapes. Nixon agreed to the clemency proposal.

Four other Watergate defendants, Cuban Americans from Miami whom Howard Hunt had brought to the burglary operation, took this as a cue that they’d be pardoned, too, and also pleaded guilty.

Your link says that’s a conspiracy theory?

Nixon didn't know that the evidence tying him to the Chennault Affair was weak. If it was weak, he could play the "I didn't know" card. If it was strong, he would have had to play the much worse "It wasn't illegal" card. These are mutually exclusive, so conducting a criminal operation to get a peak at the evidence was a rational gamble. It didn't pay off, but no, just chilling was not a good option and no, the underlying act was not the lesser evil.

Isn’t the Martha Stewart insider trading story one of these counter examples?

Martha Stewart was never convicted for insider trading. This is a common mistake people make.

She was found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct, of obstruction of an agency proceeding, and of making false statements.

Had she said she made the trade(s) on the basis of a tip, would that have been the better outcome? Was keeping her mouth shut an option?

There are numerous counter-examples to this claim. In many cases, it's obvious because the cover-up is of a civil infraction.

Indeed, people go out of the frying pan and into the fire all the time.

I think the kernel of truth in the parent post is that the subjects might genuinely believe that the revelation of the original "crime" alone would be impossible to recover from, so they might as well go all in on trying to cover it up.

So, the "marginal cost" of additional penalties from a failed coverup just doesn't seem all that high given the potential upside of a successful coverup.

I probably watch too much popular media, but I am only thinking of bigger crimes where it seems like the rational choice is to attempt a coverup.

Murder? Check. Stealing a Snicker's bar? Probably just leave the evidence in place.

What is the threshold where you have to make the call? White-collar crimes feel the only place where you could make the argument that further action on the scene is likely to leave behind more evidence.

White-collar crimes feel the only place where you could make the argument that further action on the scene is likely to leave behind more evidence.

Nixon tapes, Iran Contra paper shredding, Enron paper shredding (we got Sarbanes Oxley out of that.) There are plenty of places where further action likely prevented far far worse things.

I think white collar crime is harder now, as evidenced by recent political scandals (fucking up your secure messaging app, bungling PDF's). I dont know of any one who has the technical acumen to fully cover their tracks.

I think you're misinterpreting it a bit. Yes, the covered-up thing is usually bad enough that there's an incentive to conceal it, but it's the efforts at concealment that often end up drawing attention to the perpetrator. Absent those, many crimes would either not be investigated so thoroughly or talked down to less significance with a 'so what' or 'I didn't think it was illegal/a big deal' response (this happens a lot in politics nowadays). Covering up some incriminating action implicitly admits that the action was known to be bad, making it impossible to downplay after discovery.

The problem with cover ups is that they are creating more data points and evidence to find/arrest/prosecute you.

They also demonstrate intent that was potentially unproveable before the attempt to cover up. It's pretty hard to say "oh whoops, was that illegal?" if you've gone to significant lengths to hide it from law enforcement.

Survivorship bias...

When the coverup works, we don't hear about it.

Often we know about the coverup, but we don't know what was covered up. "Lost" documents are quite common in politics.

And we will never know if it was worth it.

this has some faulty reasoning involved as well.

There are the following conditions:

1. individual determines correctly the crime is not survivable and does cover up that fails and you have both crime and cover up.

2. individual determines correctly the crime is not survivable and does cover up with succeeds in covering up crime sufficiently but then the individual gets damage from cover up, since there is a strong suspicion the cover up was of crime the cover up punishment is nearly as bad as crime.

... variations of above until

X1. individual determines incorrectly the crime is not survivable when it was, and does cover up and suffers more from cover up than they would from crime.

These things are of course also hampered by what one hopes for - if you think you will be damaged by crime but not as much by cover up if cover up fails you may still attempt cover up because successful cover up means no damage.

3. Individual does cover up, which gets discovered along with a crime, and the individual gets punished for both the cover-up and the crime that was discovered. The cover-up was successful. It hid a much more egregious crime that nobody ever learned about.

I don't think there's cold rational thought that goes into most coverups, it's more like ....

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rN97tqSwI44

Well, part of it is that the systems are generally designed with the idea that covering up or otherwise trying to fight the system is likely to happen when the system is likely to inflict a negative outcome on someone. So the obvious course is the make obstructing the system in this treated as badly or worse than the actual thing being covered up or obstructed. You see this in the judicial system all the time, where if you're found to be hiding or tampering with evidence, the court can just assume the worst possible version of whatever such evidence could have been, or just outright award a default verdict, as Alex Jones has been finding out recently.

To say that there's a scandal because the cover-up didn't work is no more than a dingbat truism

This nails it quite succinctly, IMO.

In practice, there are examples both for and against the proposition that the cover-up is worse than the crime. Having said that, the argument presented here against the proposition is being justified with a fallacy: numerous cases have shown that cover-ups are attempted even when a full revelation of the underlying crime is survivable (either literally or metaphorically.) In at least some and perhaps many cases, attempting a cover-up may be the statistically-justifiable rational choice even if its failure will bring worse consequences than the infraction being covered up.

Filming the crime and then covering it up isn't exactly going to work in your favour.

Wow, that's a lot of expensive trouble to go through to cover up. I wonder what the penalties would be otherwise - I'm sure there is some kind of code it broke but it's not obviously illegal. It's like me crashing my car on purpose.

sure there is some kind of code it broke but it's not obviously illegal

It's very illegal. Part 91 § 91.13 careless or reckless operation [1] and § 91.15 dropping objects [2]. (I'm studying for my pilot's license.)

Also, until SCOTUS rules otherwise, agency rules carry the strength of statute.

[1] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/section-91.13

[2] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/section-91.15

Sure, but is it a felony-20-years-in-a-FPITA-prison illegal, or a giant-fine-and-revocation-of-pilot-license illegal? :-)

is it a felony-20-years-in-a-FPITA-prison illegal, or a giant-fine-and-revocation-of-pilot-license illegal

Probably the latter unless someone gets hurt. (Agree with you that this was a dumb cover-up. Particularly when he seems to have done the cover up before posting the video?)

When does it become a cover-up vs "oopsie, didn't know"?

If he had dismantled the plane before the FAA knew about the crash, would that still qualify as destroying evidence?

As far as I understand in the aviation world the expectation is that you tell the FAA after any incident, nevermind crash, and presumably wait for their guidance on the wreck.

Chopping up the plane and distributing the pieces in assorted different regular trash bins over time sounds like mens rea to me

Some forms of reckless driving are considered felonies and can land you in prison, I feel like it would or should be worse with an airplane.

FPITA-prison

Rape isn't funny. You might want to consider not using that slang term.

I'm pretty sure it is legal in the United States to buy a car and drive it uninsured on your own private property... and drive it into a brick wall at high speed. There is a YouTuber who is basically doing this now: Buying expensive cars and wrecking them on his private land. (I forget his name, but US-based guy. One video was him wrecking a highly customized Mercedes G Wagon.)

If you google the search terms "talladega big one" you will see a great variety of uninsured, expensive cars being driven on private property and aggressively junked ten or twenty at a time. This is most certainly not illegal without additional bad conduct.

Okay but in the US cars are generally above the law in many ways

Whistlindiesel

How can you think that this isn't obviously illegal lmao.

What prior evidence do we have of government honoring such "if you were honest we'd be easier on you" crap?

Zero incentive to trust such a statement. It's backed by nothing.

Plenty of evidence. Search keywords are "sentence", "reduced" and "cooperating".

Not sure about the veracity of this site, but it includes the law article number so you can verify it yourself: https://www.gordondefense.com/federal-crimes/federal-crimina...

> Federal Safety Valve (Title 18 United States Code Section 3553(e), United States Sentencing Commission §§ 5C1.2 and §2D1.1(b)(17))

A person may be able to cooperate in order to receive relief under the “Safety Valve” provision of 18 U.S.C. 3553(e), USSG sections 5C1.2 and §2D1.1(b)(17). The safety valve is a particular area of importance as it is a way to receive reductions below mandatory minimum sentences

I’m not sure it’s that they’d go easy on you, I think it’s more that they would go extra hard as a deterrent when they catch you trying to cover things up.

Was the federal investigation already underway before he enacted his plan to cover it up? Or does it not matter. When does an investigation formally start? When they heard about the fake crash like everyone else did when it went viral on youtube?

It doesn't matter. As a licensed pilot he had a duty to report the incident. You don't get to pick whether it's "worth" investigating, the agency gets to decide based on your mandatory reporting.

Aircraft crashes may operate under different rules?

Amazingly childish actions with adult scale, I'm blown away.

To chop it and dispose in local garbage... yikes.

Stuff like this makes me question things. I have a day job and this idiot has access to a helicopter and a spare plane to crash

Sounds a lot like parents' money no?

Perhaps, I know nothing about this.. but it does sound like a spoiled/sheltered kid.

In a more grand sense, this feels like a good example of our absurdity/excess. I'm not sure this would have happened if "influencers" hadn't become what they are

Super curious how they even found out. Did he confess? Anyone got the info?

Super curious how they even found out.

Found out what exactly?

Did he confess?

He posted a video on youtube, the rest of it is just standard investigation.

What a weirdo psycho, omg, it's like he's chopping up a body. Why didn't he just leave the wreckage there? Surely everything would have been far better if he had done that. Guilt and fear makes people do insane things, this is today's reminder.

That takes a lot of cash and a lot of stupid.

Is there any reason to believe that there will be a future trial in which he gets in trouble for purposefully crashing the plane as well?

For me, the really interesting question is not if he's guilty - I had assumed as much - but if he will come out financially successful. That video had millions of views and a sponsorship deal. Call me a cynic, but it seems that some companies will deliberately break the law and pay the price if it's worth it, so why not independent hustlers.

A federal felony and a 6-month prison sentence, on their own, would almost certainly tip the scales to "not worth it". I wouldn't be surprised if there were also a disgorgement involved.

It’s a big black mark on your reputation, it’s rarely worth it. He could have injured or killed someone for a video.

Crime doesn’t pay

Large companies commit crime constantly and make it pay, the fines they incur are simply counted a cost of doing business

They don't regularly commit crimes though. They commit regulatory violations. There's a big difference. Like getting a parking ticket versus being convicted for a felony. Ones that get convicted like Purdue Pharma are fined so heavily they are forced to close. Or they could just be banned from doing business like Arthur Anderson when they had to surrender their CPA licenses and forgo rights to practice.

Steal a loaf of bread, do hard time. Steal $5 here and there millions of times over from unsuspecting customers with completely made-up junk fees, and it's an FTC fine...after years of haggling in court. The magic of indirection!

Nobody does hard time for stealing a loaf of bread, but sure keep ranting..

USSR? China? Malaysia? Saudi Arabia? Iran? USA if the police and DA want to make an example?

I doubt anyone does any jail time for stealing bread unless they are habitual offender(multiple felony convictions) or its aggravated theft(eg: by force/violence). Court cases are public so feel free to prove me wrong.

Todd Hutchinson (bread, candy, and a radio -- U.S.A), Elkeno Wallace (hot dog buns -- Bahamas), Jean Valjean (self-evident), numerous gulag victims (see: Solzhenitsyn), unnamed father who got his hand and foot chopped off for stealing a bag of flour in Syria, etc.

Jean Valjean (self-evident)

Jean Valjean is a character in a novel, not a real person, and is about as relevant to this discussion as a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk.

Apparently not self-evident!

A.k.a Eugène Vidocq

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Fran%C3%A7ois_Vido... says he stole a lot of money from his parents' bakery, but wasn't imprisoned for that (though was for plenty of other crimes).

From the past: USSR applied a death sentence for stealing grains from the already harvested field.

Nowadays Taliban do hands amputation as punishment for stealing(not sure about stealing bread, though).

Tell that to Jean Valjean.

I don't know how to tell you this, but Jean Valjean is a fictional character.

Based on real punishments. And people had their hands chopped off for petty theft too.

The historical element is more relevant. In the UK (and perhaps the US) in 1723 it was made illegal to hunt a rabbit - punishable by death.

3rd strike law? I knew someone that did 14 days for stealing a frozen chicken. Repeat offender...the judge may have been fed up for all the other crap from previous and decided to go full max.

Fraud, conspiracy, and wage theft are the common ones that companies commit every day.

How many times have people been fraudulently misled about the scope and responsibilities of their roles? How many times have companies misclassified workers or denied overtime pay? How many times have companies lied about their products and services? How many times have big tech companies conspired to keep wages down? How many private equity and pharmaceutical companies have engaged in profiteering?

They regularly commit crimes. Though the definition of crime is constantly being patched with loopholes by lobbyists and other well-connected jackals. The Overton window keeps on shifting. It's just a power battle between people more powerful than you.

Tell me what 6 months in a cage and financial ruin will do to teach someone about a victimless crime.

Justice is not in play here. The punishment should match the crime.

Tell me what 6 months in a cage and financial ruin will do to teach someone about a victimless crime.

Don't do victimless crimes. If you have already done it, don't cover it up. And if you have to do it all, don't do it stupid.

Yeah that's complete BS. They don't own us, nor are they entitled to any particular respect or behavior.

Their rule is firm as long as people allow themselves to be ruled.

Do you think this youtuber should not be punished with prison time?

So any other kid can do the same knowing they will not be punished?

He could have injured or killed someone for a video.

I'm pretty sure you are more likely to kill someone driving to work today than crashing a plane in some random as forest.

Killing someone driving to work so you can pay for rent/mortgage/groceries is somewhat different than putting Go Pros on your car and deliberately crashing into someone so you can pay for rent/mortgage/groceries.

But you’re more likely to kill someone when the remote forest fire you sparked by intentionally crashing your plane grew and took out a bunch of firefighters and a village than you are to kill someone driving to work.

It’s a big black mark on your reputation, it’s rarely worth it.

Maybe if he was applying for a job at the FAA, as a pilot, or as a school teacher. but for a professional youtuber, not so much.

It does close those doors though.

He will also never fly again.

I agree with you of course but I wonder how wise it is for governments to follow the strategy of felonies being irrevocable black marks?

That is to say if we rely on the permanent reputation taint as a deterrent then once you’ve been tainted are you not now much more likely to go do more harmful, felonious things?

I don’t know much about felonies though — perhaps they can be expunged after X years of good behaviour?

Crime often pays. That's part of why it's so popular.

Being an entitled dickhead, endangering the public and flaunting basic rules of decent society - pretty much in the 'don't do it' column. Worth it? If your ethics are worthless an argument could be made. But there's no conversion between character and cash; it's a null set.

Legal fees alone are going to be many times YouTube revenue. Add lost wages for a half year in prison. Add future lost revenue from sponsors who don't want to be associated with this, and it has to be a huge financial disaster.

Even if the legal fees weren't many times the revenue, I never understood why couldn't the justice system default to fines like "All income arising out of crime + $XYZ" for all crimes, so that the fine is never a cost of doing business?

Perhaps laziness? Determining which profits are due to a crime could be difficult to separate from legitimate activity. That said, they could write the law to claw back anything that's easily accounted for, and just use some approximations when that's impractical.

It doesn't even need to be an exact or accurate accounting of money made due to crime. The legal system could impose fines high enough to hurt regardless of where the money came from, and pretty much everyone agrees that they should because otherwise fines are just a cost of doing business. The fact that the legal system refuses to do that when it's so obvious that not doing it is harmful to everyone except criminal corporations is troubling.

The technical term for it is "disgorgement" and it does exist in some contexts. I agree it is shockingly absent in far too many.

What percentage of viewer income was due to the crime?

I presume this is hypothetical. A reasonable start would be to see the difference average views on a video and views on this particular video times as revenue per view.

Admittedly I’ve never heard of this guy and avoid most YouTube “creators” and it got a view out of me out of morbid curiosity and so I could speculate on whether it was pre planned.

That question, as posed, represents why this isn’t often done. It’s very difficult to determine the contributing revenue fraction when one illegal action is laundered among many. Seizure tends to be all or nothing as a result.

My guess: it's too expensive to keep track of what constitutes "income arising out of crime" for the statutory period / lifetime of the perpetrator, especially if it could spawn an endless stream of minor cases for whether any specific income is truly "arising out of crime".

Easy fix, have the perpetrator pay for the investigation.

This is a thing (this is the whole thing about treble damages). Despite what people say on HN, "Fines are a cost of doing business" is more a statement of fact (running a business, you sometimes fuck up and pay for it), rather than a statement of intent (do things that get fined but make money off of it). For most people anyways.

If you run scam X and earn Y from that scam, then get caught doing X, it is extremely unlikely that you are walking away with a fine less than Y. The problem is of course maybe the feds only notice Y/2 or Y/10. There's some hand wringing about scam X earning you Y directly but helping to support scam Z in the future that you will do better (or legitimate businesses A,B,C that earn you Y * 1000). But there's a base principle, and "let's just fine off of overall revenue" things leading to "some case officer in Omaha lied on forms, so we will fine this bank $2 billion" is kinda silly[0].

But generally speaking illegal activity where you get caught is going to end badly for you. And illegal activity you get away with will end better for you, but that's true independent of the fee structure.

[0] the case officer might be part of a larger pattern. This is what discovery and investigations are for! Do enough work and you can prove that the earnings from the illegal activity is higher!

I thought that was what criminal forfeiture laws were supposed to be about. Is there are reason why they aren't routinely applied in cases like this? Seems to be a much more productive use than typical civil forfeiture.

I'd argue that it's shouldn't even be only income + $xyz, it's income * (1 / chance of succesful enforcement) to reduce companies that thought that as long as it's hidden enough you'll be safe. It'll be a lot more arbitrary though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law

Probably because it's not necessarily always a proportional punishment?

Like if you drive somewhere with a suspended license somewhere and make a million dollars as a result, should all that money be subject to seizure?

This is called disgorgement and is indeed frequently used for certain types of crimes (particularly financial crimes).

No chance for future lucrative film and book deals?

If this kind of thing becomes increasingly common in the "influencer" economy, this instance could be seen as Ground Zero making him an OG pioneer of sorts. That has to be worth something, for better or worse.

Six months prison time isn't very long after all, six months of average salary doesn't buy you anywhere near this level of fame.

We have the benefit of hindsight. If he thought there was a 20% chance of being caught, then maybe 0.2*(legal fees + other consequences) < $profit + fame.

Plus, and I’m speculating here, there might be a breach of contract or tos here and there due to illegal activities, so he might even have to return some or all revenues.

How much money would you take to spend 6 months in jail?

Depends on a jail. Some are more like resorts/rehabs compared to others. US jails for 6-month crimes aren’t particularly bad, afaiu. Personally I’d take around $200k too for a US jail, assuming I have nothing to do for half a year and there will be no social/legal consequences that matter.

Disclaimer: I wouldn’t commit a crime to make money/time tradeoff, only a hypothetical experimental exchange with no real danger to anyone.

This "what if" is not realistic, because you have the retainer of "there will be no social/legal consequences that matter".

A felony prevents you from getting a job. Obviously being hyperbolic but you know that the conviction is as much a punishment as the incarceration.

If I can choose it to be a Norwegian prison, may be 100-200k USD. I always wanted to take a self-discovery retreat but can't commit to it.

Is YouTube actually letting him monetize it? I didn’t think you could make money off a video of yourself committing a crime?

the crime was the cover-up tho

We're living in the age of advertisers hyperfixated on brand safety. I can't see any brand thinking it's a good idea to throw money at this guy. More attention is a good thing until you're OJ Simpson.

Will ridge wallet come crawling back? Heck no.

But in the world of influencers one of the primary currenciez is notariety, some cess pool like kick or rumble would gladly take the publicity, good or "bad."

I doubt its anything that can beat 6 months in jail

Thats assuming that yt pays out and his sponsors doesn't sue him.

A more hip headline would be "Feds hand YouTuber the ultimate demonetization for plane crash vid"

given all the media attention and the general frivolity of the matter, that answers it. A tiny sentence at prison camp for a few months makes it worth it for a career of earnings and buzz.

Demonetized.

He deserves a much longer sentence for this. There is so much risk of killing someone or damaging property. Even in a remote area you cannot be sure there is nothing below or that you won’t start a forest fire.

I’ve seen less bad crimes get years.

Lots of things that could harm or kill someone just get a small fine. For example, going 5 mph over the speed limit has likely killed many people over the decades, yet it's still only a $100 ticket or so.

Do you have statistics on the marginal cost of 5mph? Id be interested to understand your certainty that e.g. 60mph is both more fatal and the number of deaths that could be prevented by going 55mph.

I expect there are relatively few deaths that can be directly attributed to 5mph, but given evidence I'll reconsider.

https://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/2011PedestrianR...

Risk of death for pedestrians goes up 250% when hit by a car going 32mph vs one going 23mph. Given the rising rate of pedestrian deaths in North America (at a 40 year high), it is an almost certainty that 5mph has made the difference in a great number of pedestrian deaths.

This seemed like a carefully chosen representation of the pdf, here's the quote from the linked 2011 estimated risks

The average adjusted, standardized risk of death reached 10% at an impact speed of 23 mph, 25% at 32 mph, 50% at 42 mph, 75% at 50 mph, and 90% at 58 mph. Risk of death increased approximately linearly with speed for speeds between 32 mph and 50 mph, with an average increase of 2.8 percentage points (95% CI: 2.2 – 3.4) for each 1 mph increase in impact speed for speeds within this range.

Imo, though the risk of death from increased speed does obviously make a difference, particularly at the low end, the difference between 55mph and 60mph is predictably marginal, as in you're still at least 75% likely to die.

True, I did cherry-pick the data, but pedestrian/vehicle interactions are the most likely to occur in areas where the speed limit is lower.

i.e. Most 55mph roads do not have crosswalks at every corner and pedestrians using uncontrolled intersections. Most 25mph roads DO have crosswalks (marked or unmarked) at every corner, and intersections are likely to be uncontrolled for peds. In other words, I am much more worried about getting hit by someone doing 30 in a 25 zone than I am about someone doing 60 in a 55 if only because I rarely walk or cross on roads like that. I suspect that data extrapolates since pedestrian infrastructure tends to be densest in low speed areas.

In any case, the GP was arguing that 5mph was arguably inconsequential. The paper I linked shows that at almost any speed risk of death rises in a meaningful way every 5mph.

To put it all into perspective. Would you rather get hit by a car at 55mph or 60mph? Is the difference marginal if you have to make that choice?

I think we need to be careful; we can always show a slower speed is safer. I'm hoping to see where the speed limit is x on a road designed for x and someone goes x+5, the marginal danger.

I expect most accidents don't fit this profile and let's say there were 50k traffic deaths in a year, 1k match this scenario and the marginal impact is something like 50. This is pure speculation.

(Strawman) We could clearly limit most traffic deaths by going 5mph at all times. We generally accept the risk of higher speeds.

I noticed this is data for being hit with a given speed. In real life initially you might drive faster and then try to brake / swerve / otherwise slow down before the hit.

to be fair, they didnt claim it is likely, just that it could kill.

You could make the same point about going 5mph under the speed limit.

It is somewhat interesting to think about the factors that go into setting a punishment. It is rarely the magnitude of potential damage (worst case), and often not even the damage adjusted by the probability of occurrence.

Most often, it has more to do with subjective custom and norms. Some dangerous things are OK, some are harshly punished.

Certain companies dumping massive amounts of certain chemicals into water supply for many years are not even found guilty.

5mph over in a city or intentional plane crash in the wilderness and misleading investigators are small enough to be bad things, but do bad things at sufficient scale and those things are no longer bad.

Level of risk has something to do with it too. Also the benefit.

There’s small risk and tremendous benefit to letting everyone go 5 mph faster (time is money) but no benefit and relatively high risk to letting them turn Cessnas into missiles. The calculus on this one is easy

the biggest danger in car accidents is not speed, but speed differentials. going 5 mph over the speed limit does carry an enhanced risk, the danger of colliding with all the other people going 15 over the limit.

That's an increased risk of accident, but not a big danger. In your scenario, you're getting rear-ended at 10 mph. That's unlikely to cause a serious danger, whereas there is a real difference in surviving a crash at 70 versus 75.

I’d guess the relative risk of sending a plane to an uncontrolled crash is orders of magnitude greater than the risk of speeding.

We do punish things that have higher risk profiles such as driving drunk, and I’d guess I’m still much more likely to kill someone by abandoning my cessna than driving with a .08 bac.

Arbitrarily low speed limits for political reasons including cynical revenue generation have certainly caused more accidents. Interstates were designed to be safely driven at much higher speeds than 55 or 65. Causing traffic to pile up is certainly a cause of chain collisions.

There are things that shouldn't have been crimes at all ruin people's lives. I'm not saying this guy deserves to lose everything, but I agree that less than one year isn't justice considering all the harm he did and could have caused.

The prison sentence was for obstruction of justice the matter of crashing the plane hasn't been addressed yet.

It’s not being addressed at all. I don’t believe he’s charged with anything and in fact, it might not even be illegal.

Millions of lives became a smidge more interesting because they got to see, think, talk and be outraged by this guy crashing a plane into a remote mountain range on purpose. As a society we can afford things like this if they're a one-off. It's slightly more fun if this happens once in 10 years than if it happens zero times. If 6 months is all he gets then that seems right to me, maybe even a bit much.

I’m not sure I agree that this is in some way culturally worth it. But I have to concede, this is basically how Damn Interesting episodes get made.

6-months does seem insanely light even if one only considers intentionally obstructing a federal investigation. Only 6 months for covering up and lying to investigators? I would have imagined that the sentence for that would be much longer. Is he additionally being tried for crashing the airplane on purpose?

Good point. Why wouldn’t you attempt to obstruct if it might save you from a long jail term and the downside is only six more months.

I've seen less bad crimes get years.

Exactly. Lotta people still in jail for marijuana for example.

Plenty of previous discussion on HN, but IMHO the most interesting one was the early dissection of whether or not the crash was intentional: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29729307

I don't recall any discussions being particularly interesting because even a cursory, single watch of the video made it immediately apparent that he crashed it on purpose.

Interesting is obviously subjective to the observer, but subjects can be interesting and informative in their detail and not just their conclusion.

That's generally true, but I am reticent to call anything this guy did interesting.

He did a lot of strange stuff (which you probably didn't notice on your first viewing) which people picked apart in interesting visual analysis. For instance, he jumped out of the plane with a mini fire extinguisher strapped to his leg, hidden under his pants. Why? We don't know, but there are several hypothesis.

If you feel the urge to ask me what those hypothesis are - then I think you'll see the point.

For instance, he jumped out of the plane with a mini fire extinguisher strapped to his leg, hidden under his pants. Why? We don't know, but there are several hypothesis.

I think this is part of my point because it's obvious why: he crashed the plane on purpose in an extremely dry area, so he took a fire extinguisher with him in hopes of extinguishing any fire he started. He concealed it because he was faking the crash. He's also an idiot there as well because it took him a while to get to the crash site, which was much too long for a mini fire extinguisher to be useful.

So see? It's obvious and not interesting. He's just an idiot.

Granted, what the other commenter pointed out is indeed an interesting facet, which is to your original point as well, but it's more to do with engines and planes being interesting.

If I recall correctly, there was a lot of nuanced discussion of different engine behaviors with different failure modes, and how those did or did not match the video evidence. Sound of the engine, rpms, prop behavior, ect

As one of the people who commented on that thread, it was really eye-opening to see the group dynamics involved between people who have experience in the domain vs those who don't.

It definitely made me look at online debates a lot differently, as previously I thought good points can come from anywhere (which can still happen), but it turns out experience in the domain is usually way more relevant.

I guess it's similar to that effect where if you see news about a topic you don't know, you tend to take/believe everything as-is, but if you happen to know the domain, you'll usually spot quite a few factual errors which tend to discredit most of the news.

Yes. Remember this fact.

My expertise is education. Everyone has opinions about that field. Many, many, many are just completely ignorant.

It's why I try not to weigh in too heavily on areas that I have no practical experience in.

Thanks! Macroexpanded:

FAA investigating controversial crash video - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29729307 - Dec 2021 (414 comments)

If people find the other threads we can add them to the list here.

Give such folks an option of a stint in the army or risky civil service like firefighting or wilderness rescue. They obviously have some skill and courage, teach them to channel it in socially constructive ways while compensating society for dealing with their stupidity.

I know a few people who are currently active in search and rescue organizations. None of them deserve to be forced to work with anyone like this fool - they’re professionals who control risk as much as humanly possible. This is an individual who put himself and others at incredible risk for views.

I think what GP was suggesting was that this person might have a chance to redeem themselves if they were surrounded by, and came to respect, people like you're describing. Do you think that's ever possible?

It's more likely in that environment than in prison, but I also kind of agree with GP, why do the people doing the right thing get saddled with remmediation duty on top of doing something they may even be volunteering to do? Asking a bit too much of good natured people I feel.

Sentenced not for crashing the plane, but destroying the evidence and impeding a federal investigation. Hope they pull his pilots license if they haven't already.

Airmen cert doesn't show up in https://amsrvs.registry.faa.gov/airmeninquiry/Main.aspx

https://www.aviationweekly.org/news/pw8d8knj7uroieoxodawivkl...

In a letter sent to Trevor Jacob by the FAA on April 11th, the FAA said he had violated federal aviation regulations and operated his single-engine aircraft in a “careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another.” The agency said it would immediately revoke Trevor Jacob’s private pilot certificate, suspending his license to operate any aircraft.

It would appear the agency has followed through.

The title of his latest video is "I Got My Pilots License Back! But Going To Prison..."[0]

No idea how the websites you cited work, maybe there's a delay. Seems like he's flying around again.

(Haven't watched the video and won't, but maybe he explains it further)

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55JdKOFIecc

Yeah, but if he hadn't covered it up it seems pretty clear he would have been charged for deliberately crashing instead.

Might as well link to the DOJ press release; the Twitter post doesn't add any useful information:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/santa-barbara-county-ma...

Ok, we've changed to that from https://twitter.com/bnonews/status/1731748816250974335. Thanks!

It really doesn't, and in fact proceeds to screenshot said press release.

For those that can't login to view the thread: https://nitter.net/bnonews/status/1731748816250974335

He or someone wrote this 6 hours ago on his Instagram:

"Two years ago I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane and let it crash into the ground, took some bad advice, and decided to remove the wreckage. Today I was sentenced to 6 months in Federal Prison. Thank you to my unconditional loving family and friends. You know who you are, and who you aren't :) My incredible lawyer, and Federal Judge Walter, for understanding the truth of the situation, and giving me a second chance at life. This situation could have been a lot worse, and am extremely grateful am here to talk about it. look forward to teaching our youth from my mistake, and the lessons I have learned from this, it has changed me as a person forever, and therefore, I am so excited for this next chapter of implementing those changes into society for the better. made a video about this on my YouTube channel if you'd like to watch it.Always wear your parachute my friends. Much love"

Not really sure what to expect from his post as it gives me vibes of something his mother would write for him if he's locked up and cannot do so himself.

Gearing up for a tour as an inspirational speaker when he gets out.

"Please like and smash that subscribe button" vibes, but it's his livelihood to do that so not sure if it's reasonable to expect anything different. The text doesn't make it hard giving him the benefit of the doubt at least. Hope he'll land in his feet and do better from now on.

YouTube is full of shit videos with similar titles. Mainly inspired by MrBeast. Kids are willing to daredevil acts just to get video views inspired by that idiot dumb face.

I spent 7 days buried alive I survived 7 months in Antarctica. I got haunted by military. ..

I spent 41 years on the same planet in this awesome VR game, and it isn't even No Man's Sky.

Anyone have a link to the video?

I think it was deleted but you can find a reupload

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2htaX92rRI

Can't understand his risk/reward calculation on crashing the plane. Was the bump in views (not guaranteed, only probable) greater than the cost of the plane and potential personal hazard from crashing a plane then broadcasting it to the world?

He comes from a very wealthy family. He just wanted fame, no matter the financial cost.

It's unclear to me why he's destroyed this evidence or how the vague explanation suggested in the article (for YouTube views) makes any sense. Anyone understand it?

Seems pretty clear to me. There was evidence of a crime he was being investigated for.

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 was done with the intent to obstruct federal authorities from investigating the November 24 plane crash.

I mean, I would pay to watch this movie.

Only in USA. hhaahah

This maniac is still flying a plane earlier today? https://instagram.com/trevorjacob?igshid=MzMyNGUyNmU2YQ== How is that possible?

six months in federal prison ...

“I Crashed My Airplane,” that contained a promotion of the wallet and depicted him parachuting from the plane

Goes to federal prison after promoting a wallet.

Six months for lying is not enough. There should be another suit files for and cleanup he should have to fix any damage done by this wreck, and then also repay back the cost of the investigation.

Feds took the easy way out by sentencing him for obstruction rather than the act itself. That would have been quite a precedent to set.

And... He's already got his pilot license back. [0]

[0] https://youtu.be/55JdKOFIecc

Let’s just hope the consequence is enough to keep people from ever doing something as dumb as this ever again.

I followed this whole story closely and his behavior was just outrageous every step dog the way culminating in actually lying to investigators and destroying evidence of a crime.

It went far beyond conduct that is unbecoming of a licensed pilot.

People doing stuff like this happens all the time on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. I think one solution could be that once you are convicted of a crime done in the service of social media that you also receive a ban from making any income from social media for a period of time. I think it may be the only way to get through to some of these people who do stuff like this.

At least he doesn't have far to go to report to prison considering that Lompoc has a federal penitentiary. Medium security though, not sure he'd qualify? Kevin Mitnick spent time there as a point of comparison.

who had secured a sponsorship from a company that sold various products, including a wallet. Pursuant to the sponsorship deal, Jacob agreed to promote the company’s wallet in a YouTube video that he would post.

All that for Ridge Wallet!??

He deserves it simply for being so incredibly stupid. Was he sure the area of the crash was clear of anyone walking around? That it wouldn't go up in flames and start a massive forest fire? It was dumb luck that those didn't happen.

Right.

Many authorities don't care until you bring them paperwork headaches. Then you've made your problem theirs, and they will respond in kind.