An American pilot could face up to 20 years in prison after it was revealed that he deliberately crashed a private plane to boost the viewing figures on his YouTube channel, The Times reported, Saturday , May 13, 2023.
Trevor Jacob, 29, deliberately left his plane in the air, causing it to hurtle toward the ground before later clearing the debris.
According to the newspaper, Trevor intends to plead guilty to the charge of destruction and concealment with the purpose of obstructing a federal investigation. This offense carries a maximum punishment of 20 years in prison.
In the video, titled “You Crashed My Plane,” Jacob appears to have experienced engine trouble while flying over Southern California in November 2021.
Jacob filmed himself with a selfie stick while exiting the single-engine plane. The video has been viewed by nearly three million people.
The descent and crash of the out of control plane into the dense vegetation of the Los Padres National Forest was recorded by its cameras.
Jacob, who competed in the US Figure Skating competition at the 2014 Winter Olympics, filmed himself wandering through the wreckage, apparently dismayed to discover that the water he was packing had disappeared.
Viewers see him wander through the trees and over the hills, as he seems to struggle to find civilisation, giving regular updates about how thirsty he is and how lost he feels. He finally stops to fill water from a stream, and encounters a car moments later as night falls.
Investigations forced him to confess
As investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration launched an investigation, Jacob was ordered to preserve the wreckage. However, he told officials he did not know where the plane went down, although video shows him walking to the wreckage.
According to a plea bargain entered in Los Angeles, two weeks after the plane crash, Jacob and his friend hauled the wreckage out of the woods in a helicopter.
Jacob then further smashed the wreckage into smaller pieces, dumping the parts in bins around Lompoc Airport, on the California coast north of Los Angeles.
In the deal, Jacob admitted he made the video to make money through a corporate sponsorship deal, and intended to obstruct federal authorities when he disposed of the wreckage.
According to a statement from the Justice Department, Jacob has confessed to falsely reporting an aircraft accident by claiming that the plane experienced a total power loss 35 minutes post-takeoff while speaking to federal investigators.
The statement said that Jacob lied to the FAA’s flight safety inspector by claiming that the plane’s engine had failed. Afterwards, as he was unable to identify any safe landing options, he decided to parachute from the plane.
He is expected to formally present his case in Los Angeles in the upcoming weeks and will be sentenced at a later date.
