A popular YouTuber recently had his pilot license revoked after being found guilty of intentionally crashing his plane and filming his parachute escape for views.

Last November, Trevor Jacob, a former Olympic snowboarder turned youtuber, crashed his small propeller airplane into the mountains of California’s Los Padres National Forest. The exact moment when his plane’s propeller stopped working was caught on camera, as was his jump out of the airplane and subsequent deployment of a life-saving parachute. Three weeks later, he published a YouTube video titled “I Crashed My Plane”, which quickly went viral and ended up getting over 2 million views. Now, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is accusing Jacob of purposely crashing his aircraft for the sake of YouTube views.

Photo: Trac Vu/Unsplash

“On November 24, 2021, you demonstrated a lack of care, judgment, and responsibility by choosing to jump out of an aircraft solely so you could record the footage of the crash,” the FAA told Jacob in a letter, citing several pieces of evidence that he had intentionally crashed the plane.

Following a probe into Jacob’s controversial plane crash, the FAA determined that the amateur pilot bailed out of the aircraft without even attempting to restart the engine once the propeller stopped, or even calling airport control to notify them of his problem. Investigators found that he could have attempted to glide the plane to one of multiple areas where he could have safely landed it.

The FAA also noted that Jacob had also attached multiple cameras to the exterior of the plane before takeoff, and proceeded to recover the cameras before disposing of the wreckage. He also reportedly jumped out of the plane holding a selfie stick and continued to record the plane’s descent.

The mere fact that Trevor Jacob was wearing a parachute on this particular flight was considered a red flag. Even though he claimed to always wear a parachute when flying, the youtuber had previously shared videos of himself flying without one.

Many in the aviation community slammed Jacob for his reckless stunt, claiming that the FAA should have acted even sooner. Aviation experts like John Nance said that the youtuber didn’t belong in the skies, while other pilots were shocked that anyone would do something so dangerous for something as trivial as YouTube video views.

“It blows my mind that he would go out of his way to wreck an airplane like that for something as stupid as, like, YouTube views,” Trent Palmer, a pilot with his own YouTube channel, said.

 

Following its investigation, the Federal Aviation Administration revoked Trevor Jacob’s pilot license, banning him from reapplying for one year.