American Youtuber pleads guilty after crashing a plane for a video

A video posted by the Youtuber quickly drew scepticism from the aviation community. Photo / Youtube

An American man will admit to purposely crashing a plane as a stunt to gain views on Youtube, officials announced last week.

On Thursday, May 18, Justice Department officials announced Trevor Daniel Jacob, 29, would plead guilty to a federal charge related to the plane crash.

The pilot and skydiver admitted that, on November 24, 2021, he departed Lompoc City Airport in Santa Barbara with the intention to crash his plane for a promotional video.

Not only the Jacob intentionally crash the plane, but he also disposed of the wreckage to hinder investigations and lied to Federal investigators when asked about the crash, according to a news release from the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.

Jacob claimed the plane lost power around 30 minutes after takeoff and, lacking safe landing options, he was forced to parachute.

As a result, he was charged with one count of destruction and concealment with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation, which he will please guilty to.

In the plea agreement, Jacob admitted he “planned to eject from his aircraft during the flight and video himself parachuting to the ground and his airplane as it descended and crashed”, with the intention to make money from the video, read the release.

Jacob had several cameras with him in the plane and parachute, to capture the events.

“Approximately 35 minutes after taking off, while flying above the Los Padres National Forest near Santa Maria, Jacob ejected from the airplane and videoed himself parachuting to the ground,” the release explained.

After parachuting to safety, he returned to the wreckage and collected the video data.

Two days later, he reported the crash to the National Transportation Safety Board and agreed to share the crash location.

However, he then claimed he did not know the location. Approximately two weeks later, he returned to the site with a friend, collected the wreckage and destroyed it.

One month after the crash, he shared the footage on YouTube in a video titled “I Crashed My Airplane”. To date, the video has received more than 4 million views.

Some video viewers expressed suspicion in the comments about whether the crash really was an accident. Certain behaviours, like wearing a parachute, making no attempt to glide the aircraft to safety and taking his camera with him out of the plane, appeared unusual, people wrote.

Jaccob’s pilot license was revoked in 2022 by the FAA and he will appear in court in the coming weeks.