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

My apologies if this was ever brought up, but I could not find a thread about it.

A kid in my aerospace class showed this video, published late last year showing Trevor Jacob (ex olympian) parachuting out of his plane when it had an "engine failure."
Until i looked into the case more, this guy is under investigation from the FAA.
https://www.independent.com/2022/01/04/ ... n-purpose/
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/youtu ... FTTFMHAEA/

Now it's starting to look intentional. Why didn't he.....
- Attempt to land instead of abandoning ship (when sources said there was some ground which he could have glided to)
- Attempt to restart the engine
- Call for help on his radio

And why parachute out of such a small cockpit too? I also heard he did not wear parachutes in his previous flights in small planes yet he went preaching to viewers "Always wear your parachute when you fly."

Thickening the plot, he then had a helicopter move the wreckage away from the initial site to "an unknown location"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23kOieM5ce0

I've also heard that the plane had not had maintenance done on it in a while and not by an FAA certified technician. Another noteworthy detail is the previous owner of the plane was one Laura Smith of California until Jan. 3, which is when the plane was shown to be "owned by Trevor Jacob."

So what do you think will happen? Will he be detained? Sure hope more youtubers do not get stupid ideas like this in their heads..

It's not the first time a plane crash has been used in video of dubious intent:
https://www.gentside.co.uk/viral/an-ame ... t4149.html

He's attention seeking, although he will never admit to it. The wildfire he could have started could have bankrupted his A$$ and he knew it. Also, he turned off comments on his YouTube page so he probably had or anticipated people would see through his $hit and call him out! He's a horrible actor too!

Boeing757100 wrote:

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

My apologies if this was ever brought up, but I could not find a thread about it.

A kid in my aerospace class showed this video, published late last year showing Trevor Jacob (ex olympian) parachuting out of his plane when it had an "engine failure."
Until i looked into the case more, this guy is under investigation from the FAA.
https://www.independent.com/2022/01/04/ ... n-purpose/
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/youtu ... FTTFMHAEA/

Now it's starting to look intentional. Why didn't he.....
- Attempt to land instead of abandoning ship (when sources said there was some ground which he could have glided to)
- Attempt to restart the engine
- Call for help on his radio

And why parachute out of such a small cockpit too? I also heard he did not wear parachutes in his previous flights in small planes yet he went preaching to viewers "Always wear your parachute when you fly."

Thickening the plot, he then had a helicopter move the wreckage away from the initial site to "an unknown location"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23kOieM5ce0

I've also heard that the plane had not had maintenance done on it in a while and not by an FAA certified technician. Another noteworthy detail is the previous owner of the plane was one Laura Smith of California until Jan. 3, which is when the plane was shown to be "owned by Trevor Jacob."

So what do you think will happen? Will he be detained? Sure hope more youtubers do not get stupid ideas like this in their heads..

All of the aviation YouTuber sites that I have visited are saying his video is sketchy at best. He’s going regret his decisions.

It also seems that the footage of the crash itself, as show from a distance, was taken by a following aircraft or helicopter. It is definitely not from the parachute. And who takes an "emergency" jump from an aircraft with a GoPro/selfie-stick in his hand?

Let alone a fire extinguisher "hidden" in his pant leg... Didn't we have a thread about this?

....and who pilots a plane wearing a sport parachute, skydiving altimeter and 2 fire extinguishers tucked inside trousers? Also there is evidence he hired a helicopter to retrieve the wreckage before the video was posted. FAA is already investigating. There is endless YouTube analysis on this...nearly all of it highly critical. Rightly so.

The only way it could've been more obvious is if he finished the video with the standard YouTube "be sure to like and subscribe and click the little bell for notifications on when I put out more videos!".

The title on the video is surprisingly truthful:

Trevor Jacobs's YouTube Video wrote:

I crashed my plane

..as opposed to "My aircraft developed engine trouble and I had to jump to save my life" which, patently, would have been a lie.

His honesty aside, I hope he gets the book thrown at him for this. What an incredibly stupid and irresponsible thing for him to have done. He had no control over where the aircraft crashed, it could have hit anything and/or started a wildfire which would have been even more dangerous. Not to mention the peril he put himself into, unnecessarily.

Staged...staged...staged!

SwissCanuck wrote:

Didn't we have a thread about this?

I most certainly thought we did but to my surprise we didn't!! Anyways, it was a very disturbing/shocking thing to see. Let's hope that fool is charged with something at least.

Noshow wrote:

Bad taste in many ways and bad acting. It's not okay to let airplanes crash in the wilderness. I hope he has to clean up the mess he left.

Don't know if this is true or not but I believe he did. Though that would have been tampering with the crash scene and hiding the evidence. FAA would be even more pissed off I would think.

GlobalAirways wrote:

He's attention seeking, although he will never admit to it. The wildfire he could have started could have bankrupted his A$$ and he knew it. Also, he turned off comments on his YouTube page so he probably had or anticipated people would see through his $hit and call him out! He's a horrible actor too!

Have to agree, setup and staged to get clicks and views. Social media makes people do dumb things.

Was wondering when this thread would come around, given that it's been a month. Anyways, what a twat this guy is.

Too late now, (don’t know if your link is his original video or not) but would have been better to link other aviation channel videos about his video rather than his original video itself as he gets clicks off his original video.

Might be more of a tech question on investigation procedures, but ALL plane crashes which occur in the U.S. do have to be investigated by the NTSB, correct? In that case, did this YouTuber think he was going to skip that step altogether?

True, but the NTSB delegates most GA accidents and incidents to the FAA who then assign a FSDO inspector to the investigation. The NTSB usually gets involved in GA accidents where the event involves significant media or government attention. A helicopter crash would be an FAA FSDO investigation until Kobe Bryant is killed and the media runs with it. The USAF investigates its accident until Ron Brown, President appointee is killed.

The NTSB also investigates accidents where there’s potentially large regulatory knock-on effects, Tesla crashes for example. It’s not a large organization, about 400 last I heard.

cpd wrote:

GlobalAirways wrote:

He's attention seeking, although he will never admit to it. The wildfire he could have started could have bankrupted his A$$ and he knew it. Also, he turned off comments on his YouTube page so he probably had or anticipated people would see through his $hit and call him out! He's a horrible actor too!

Have to agree, setup and staged to get clicks and views. Social media makes people do dumb things.

Dumb people do dumb things that we are able to witness because of social media. In this case, the documentation of this stupid act will have consequences. I guess that is a rare example of the usefulness of social media.

Uh. Engine fails, you try to restart it. Not open your door and keep looking down and adjusting your flight path looking for your landing zone (or ride to pick you up). Notice he keeps looking down and to the far left, then adjusts his heading a few times.

Where to start watching his video and analysis by others-
-Door unlatched before engine failure
-Wearing parachute, claims he always does, yet never worn in other videos
-Fuel selector disconnected
-appears fire extinguishers worn under clothing
-no fire after crash, suggesting no fuel left in tanks...intentionally?
-Recently purchased plane, reportedly wasn't airworthy, and told seller he had something special planned with it.
-reportedly failed to notify FAA/NTSB in a timely fashion. Was talking about it at airport when someone warned him he needed to report
-shadows don't line up with timeline of flight.
-supposed drone footage. Footage was showing from way above airplane, yet he was freefalling for approximately 20 seconds after bailing.
-Seemed to be trimming airplane for a nose down attitude before bailing
-Private Pilot 101 - find a suitable landing spot, of which there was at least the river bed he could have likely landed in. No attempt to look/land from footage.
-took the time to take the gopro from above the right seat before bailing.
-Decided in an apparent life or death situation to fashion up the selfie stick before jumping
-wearing sport parachute, not one designed for the airplane. Would have had to make modifications to seat to make it wearable in flight
-clothing changes during trek out
-apparently using cell phone camera for large portions of walk out, why would he burn up his battery on his phone, when he would need it to call for help potentially?
-farmers didn't seem to surprised, his friends perhaps picking him up?
-hiked to crash site to removed potentially evidence from the scene.
-speaking of crash site, why did he opt to parachute to near crash site, rather than the river basin? wouldn't that have saved him a ton of time and energy trying to get help?
-Why wouldn't he pull parachute nearly immediately, allowing more time and options on where to land?
-Why no footage of him attempting to start the engine? Perhaps he knew it wasn't going to start again?

Apologies if this has been mentioned elsewhere but I felt an update was worthwhile. The FAA now has concluded that the crash was intentional and in response revoked Trevor Jacob’s pilot’s license.

Part of the FAA’s language in a letter to Jacob (as quoted in the NYT):

“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 agency said. “Your egregious and intentional actions on these dates indicate that you presently lack the degree of care, judgment and responsibility required of a certificate holder.”

Link to NYT article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/20/us/t ... crash.html

That was some nice justice porn to wake up to !

Definitely the right decision, Good Morning America did a report on this

Link: https://youtu.be/IhfA-5Q7pcE

argentinevol98 wrote:

Apologies if this has been mentioned elsewhere but I felt an update was worthwhile. The FAA now has concluded that the crash was intentional and in response revoked Trevor Jacob’s pilot’s license.

Part of the FAA’s language in a letter to Jacob (as quoted in the NYT):

“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 agency said. “Your egregious and intentional actions on these dates indicate that you presently lack the degree of care, judgment and responsibility required of a certificate holder.”

Link to NYT article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/20/us/t ... crash.html

Of course, he does a reaction to it...

DONT CLICK THIS IF YOU DONT WANT TO WATCH IT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSETYutbcbI&t=50s

This man is awful. Not once does he admit responsibility for his actions and downplays the FAA! Sure hope he won't be able to re-apply for a PPL for a long time at least.

Boeing757100 wrote:

argentinevol98 wrote:

Apologies if this has been mentioned elsewhere but I felt an update was worthwhile. The FAA now has concluded that the crash was intentional and in response revoked Trevor Jacob’s pilot’s license.

Part of the FAA’s language in a letter to Jacob (as quoted in the NYT):

“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 agency said. “Your egregious and intentional actions on these dates indicate that you presently lack the degree of care, judgment and responsibility required of a certificate holder.”

Link to NYT article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/20/us/t ... crash.html

Of course, he does a reaction to it...

DONT CLICK THIS IF YOU DONT WANT TO WATCH IT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSETYutbcbI&t=50s

This man is awful. Not once does he admit responsibility for his actions and downplays the FAA! Sure hope he won't be able to re-apply for a PPL for a long time at least.

Should this kind of behaviour attract even harsher penalties?

This was obviously very deliberate. I cannot see others doing similar.

cpd wrote:

Boeing757100 wrote:

argentinevol98 wrote:

Apologies if this has been mentioned elsewhere but I felt an update was worthwhile. The FAA now has concluded that the crash was intentional and in response revoked Trevor Jacob’s pilot’s license.

Part of the FAA’s language in a letter to Jacob (as quoted in the NYT):



Link to NYT article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/20/us/t ... crash.html

Of course, he does a reaction to it...

DONT CLICK THIS IF YOU DONT WANT TO WATCH IT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSETYutbcbI&t=50s

This man is awful. Not once does he admit responsibility for his actions and downplays the FAA! Sure hope he won't be able to re-apply for a PPL for a long time at least.

Should this kind of behaviour attract even harsher penalties?

This was obviously very deliberate. I cannot see others doing similar.

He must either have very poor attorneys or disregards their professional advice. I can not for the life of me seeing his attorneys in any way recommending he make such a stupid reaction video. He shows 0 remorse, mocks any and all criticism, and is clearly openly trying to profit off of the whole thing with his t-shirt sales and whatnot.

I don’t know the California criminal code well enough to know exactly what he could he charged with but he greatly increased his chances of serious criminal charges. If I’m a prosecutor seeing this, I’m seeing someone do a incredibly reckless stunt for profit and using the ensuing publicity for even more profit. In a day and age where anyone can upload videos to try to garner fame I would be gravely concerned over similar incidents (not even necessarily using aircraft).
Coming down hard (e.g. prison time) would be clearly tempting as a serious deterrent.

Wow, that was way worse than I was expecting, which would have been at least some sort or defense. Instead, he just laughed. Unbelievable.

The mustard's off the hot-dog.

-Chick Hearn

He wasn't wearing a chute in that video...

argentinevol98 wrote:

I don’t know the California criminal code well enough to know exactly what he could he charged with but he greatly increased his chances of serious criminal charges. If I’m a prosecutor seeing this, I’m seeing someone do a incredibly reckless stunt for profit and using the ensuing publicity for even more profit. In a day and age where anyone can upload videos to try to garner fame I would be gravely concerned over similar incidents (not even necessarily using aircraft).
Coming down hard (e.g. prison time) would be clearly tempting as a serious deterrent.

I have no clue about the law in california but wouldn't deliverately dumping trash into nature be an offense? Someone will have to clean up the crash site and he should have to pay for that and as it was intentional some fine should be issued at least if not even more because it is not just a beer can but actually a pretty serious pollution of the environment.

argentinevol98 wrote:

cpd wrote:

Boeing757100 wrote:

Of course, he does a reaction to it...

DONT CLICK THIS IF YOU DONT WANT TO WATCH IT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSETYutbcbI&t=50s

This man is awful. Not once does he admit responsibility for his actions and downplays the FAA! Sure hope he won't be able to re-apply for a PPL for a long time at least.

Should this kind of behaviour attract even harsher penalties?

This was obviously very deliberate. I cannot see others doing similar.

He must either have very poor attorneys or disregards their professional advice. I can not for the life of me seeing his attorneys in any way recommending he make such a stupid reaction video. He shows 0 remorse, mocks any and all criticism, and is clearly openly trying to profit off of the whole thing with his t-shirt sales and whatnot.

I don’t know the California criminal code well enough to know exactly what he could he charged with but he greatly increased his chances of serious criminal charges. If I’m a prosecutor seeing this, I’m seeing someone do a incredibly reckless stunt for profit and using the ensuing publicity for even more profit. In a day and age where anyone can upload videos to try to garner fame I would be gravely concerned over similar incidents (not even necessarily using aircraft).
Coming down hard (e.g. prison time) would be clearly tempting as a serious deterrent.

He didn't kill anytime, so I'm not sure prison time would serve anything good to the society.
However, make him pay for cleaning-up his stupid stunt (and then some) and thousands of hours of community services would teach him a lesson and benefit society as a whole.

cpd wrote:

Should this kind of behaviour attract even harsher penalties?

This was obviously very deliberate. I cannot see others doing similar.

I think the most the FAA could do was pull his license. He can still face criminal charges over this.

Red Bull have just crashed an aircraft for another stunt for which the FAA had already said no to

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/277638

zeke wrote:

Red Bull have just crashed an aircraft for another stunt for which the FAA had already said no to

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/277638

Well this seems to confirm suspicions that if taken lightly more will behave this way. Honestly I would have thought Red Bull to be a professional organization that wouldn't engage in a dangerous stunt without the permission of the FAA and certainly not directly against permission, but there you go. Perhaps after being denied permission someone at Red Bull figured the consequences would be slim to none? Will the FAA pull the pilot's license of the involved pilots? They really should if it is true that they were denied permission and proceeded anyway.

[twoid][/twoid]So the slippery slope of crashes for public entertainment begins… already TV shows have started crashing airliners deliberately for “research”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Bo ... experiment

When will we see the a 777 or 787 used for this? Of course it would only be for “research”….

This sort of thing must be stomped on immediately and severely.

The Red Bull stunt, go after the pilots, put them in prison then go after the Red Bull boss and do the same.

Just because nobody was killed doesn’t make this right.

WayexTDI wrote:

argentinevol98 wrote:

cpd wrote:

Should this kind of behaviour attract even harsher penalties?

This was obviously very deliberate. I cannot see others doing similar.

He must either have very poor attorneys or disregards their professional advice. I can not for the life of me seeing his attorneys in any way recommending he make such a stupid reaction video. He shows 0 remorse, mocks any and all criticism, and is clearly openly trying to profit off of the whole thing with his t-shirt sales and whatnot.

I don’t know the California criminal code well enough to know exactly what he could he charged with but he greatly increased his chances of serious criminal charges. If I’m a prosecutor seeing this, I’m seeing someone do a incredibly reckless stunt for profit and using the ensuing publicity for even more profit. In a day and age where anyone can upload videos to try to garner fame I would be gravely concerned over similar incidents (not even necessarily using aircraft).
Coming down hard (e.g. prison time) would be clearly tempting as a serious deterrent.

He didn't kill anytime, so I'm not sure prison time would serve anything good to the society.
However, make him pay for cleaning-up his stupid stunt (and then some) and thousands of hours of community services would teach him a lesson and benefit society as a whole.

I disagree, I think prison terms don't seem unreasonable. What they SHOULD do is make him unable to re-apply for a PPL.

zeke wrote:

Red Bull have just crashed an aircraft for another stunt for which the FAA had already said no to

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/277638

Hard to compare the two. The YouTuber intentionally bailed with no plan to recover the aircraft. He was out to create a plane crash video.

Not having the FAA’s OK is a problem in itself, but the Red Bull stunt didn’t set out to crash any aircraft. Two planes set off with two pilots, the stunt being that the pilots swap aircraft. One of them succeeded, the other didn’t and landed by parachute while the aircraft crashed.

[duplicate

Boeing757100 wrote:

I disagree, I think prison terms don't seem unreasonable. What they SHOULD do is make him unable to re-apply for a PPL.

I would let him reapply for his PPL, he meets the technical requirements, let him go through the process, get his hopes up, and then deny his medical on not being a fit and proper person.

zeke wrote:

Boeing757100 wrote:

I disagree, I think prison terms don't seem unreasonable. What they SHOULD do is make him unable to re-apply for a PPL.

I would let him reapply for his PPL, he meets the technical requirements, let him go through the process, get his hopes up, and then deny his medical on not being a fit and proper person.

But doesn't having a criminal record prevent one from getting any sort of Pilot's License? Hence why I would think that he should be jailed or at least charged with an official crime so he will be unable to advance further in aviation.

Boeing757100 wrote:

WayexTDI wrote:

argentinevol98 wrote:

He must either have very poor attorneys or disregards their professional advice. I can not for the life of me seeing his attorneys in any way recommending he make such a stupid reaction video. He shows 0 remorse, mocks any and all criticism, and is clearly openly trying to profit off of the whole thing with his t-shirt sales and whatnot.

I don’t know the California criminal code well enough to know exactly what he could he charged with but he greatly increased his chances of serious criminal charges. If I’m a prosecutor seeing this, I’m seeing someone do a incredibly reckless stunt for profit and using the ensuing publicity for even more profit. In a day and age where anyone can upload videos to try to garner fame I would be gravely concerned over similar incidents (not even necessarily using aircraft).
Coming down hard (e.g. prison time) would be clearly tempting as a serious deterrent.

He didn't kill anytime, so I'm not sure prison time would serve anything good to the society.
However, make him pay for cleaning-up his stupid stunt (and then some) and thousands of hours of community services would teach him a lesson and benefit society as a whole.

I disagree, I think prison terms don't seem unreasonable. What they SHOULD do is make him unable to re-apply for a PPL.

I personally disagree: prison sentences cost the community tons of money, do not bring anything back to the community and things like that stunt did not hurt anyone.
Make him work community service will cost much less and will bring much more to the community.

And yes, barred for life from having a pilot's license.

WayexTDI wrote:

Boeing757100 wrote:

WayexTDI wrote:

He didn't kill anytime, so I'm not sure prison time would serve anything good to the society.
However, make him pay for cleaning-up his stupid stunt (and then some) and thousands of hours of community services would teach him a lesson and benefit society as a whole.

I disagree, I think prison terms don't seem unreasonable. What they SHOULD do is make him unable to re-apply for a PPL.

I personally disagree: prison sentences cost the community tons of money, do not bring anything back to the community and things like that stunt did not hurt anyone.
Make him work community service will cost much less and will bring much more to the community.

And yes, barred for life from having a pilot's license.

Ok, agreed on the money part, but what if the uncontrolled plane crashed in a more urbanized area or like a school or something? Forget that, imagine if the impact of the plane actually caused a fire and not only destroyed natural parks, but imagine if there was civilization there and injuries/deaths were caused.

WayexTDI wrote:

Boeing757100 wrote:

WayexTDI wrote:

He didn't kill anytime, so I'm not sure prison time would serve anything good to the society.
However, make him pay for cleaning-up his stupid stunt (and then some) and thousands of hours of community services would teach him a lesson and benefit society as a whole.

I disagree, I think prison terms don't seem unreasonable. What they SHOULD do is make him unable to re-apply for a PPL.

I personally disagree: prison sentences cost the community tons of money, do not bring anything back to the community and things like that stunt did not hurt anyone.
Make him work community service will cost much less and will bring much more to the community.

And yes, barred for life from having a pilot's license.

Mandatory time in prison for the pilot and for the owner(s) of sponsoring companies act as a deterrent. It will hopefully prevent this happening in the future.

As an alternative you could also have the person banned from driving a car permanently too, maybe a flying ban as well (so they cannot be a passenger on any flights). Whatever, it needs to be very severe.

FluidFlow wrote:

argentinevol98 wrote:

I don’t know the California criminal code well enough to know exactly what he could he charged with but he greatly increased his chances of serious criminal charges. If I’m a prosecutor seeing this, I’m seeing someone do a incredibly reckless stunt for profit and using the ensuing publicity for even more profit. In a day and age where anyone can upload videos to try to garner fame I would be gravely concerned over similar incidents (not even necessarily using aircraft).
Coming down hard (e.g. prison time) would be clearly tempting as a serious deterrent.

I have no clue about the law in california but wouldn't deliverately dumping trash into nature be an offense? Someone will have to clean up the crash site and he should have to pay for that and as it was intentional some fine should be issued at least if not even more because it is not just a beer can but actually a pretty serious pollution of the environment.

There were reports on his YouTube video that he moved the whole wreckage to an undisclosed location prior to NTSB or anyone getting there

Boeing757100 wrote:

I would let him Ed an exuded visa process reapply for his PPL, he meets the technical requirements, let him go through the process, get his hopes up, and then deny his medical on not being a fit and proper person.

But doesn't having a criminal record prevent one from getting any sort of Pilot's License? Hence why I would think that he should be jailed or at least charged with an official crime so he will be unable to advance further in aviation.[/quote]

No it’s doesn’t as far as I know, but can stop a medical on character grounds. No medical has the same effect.

You wont get hired by an airline with a criminal record. Traveling outside the US would be very difficult with a criminal record.

FGITD wrote:

Hard to compare the two. The YouTuber intentionally bailed with no plan to recover the aircraft. He was out to create a plane crash video.

Not having the FAA’s OK is a problem in itself, but the Red Bull stunt didn’t set out to crash any aircraft. Two planes set off with two pilots, the stunt being that the pilots swap aircraft. One of them succeeded, the other didn’t and landed by parachute while the aircraft crashed.

The aircraft were fitted with a large extended drag brake from aircraft with an autopilot setup that the aircraft would remain in a vertical dive. Without a pilot onboard they would crash and be destroyed. The aircraft did have a tail chute installed that could be remotely activated however the impact would still destroy the aircraft.

The red bull event was setup for live streaming, with the pilots and aircraft covered in cameras.

The similarities with the was the pilots and aircraft were covered in cameras for steaming and pilots intentionally taking off with parachutes with the intention to jump out in flight is a stark similarity.

zeke wrote:

FGITD wrote:

Hard to compare the two. The YouTuber intentionally bailed with no plan to recover the aircraft. He was out to create a plane crash video.

Not having the FAA’s OK is a problem in itself, but the Red Bull stunt didn’t set out to crash any aircraft. Two planes set off with two pilots, the stunt being that the pilots swap aircraft. One of them succeeded, the other didn’t and landed by parachute while the aircraft crashed.

The aircraft were fitted with a large extended drag brake from aircraft with an autopilot setup that the aircraft would remain in a vertical dive. Without a pilot onboard they would crash and be destroyed. The aircraft did have a tail chute installed that could be remotely activated however the impact would still destroy the aircraft.

The red bull event was setup for live streaming, with the pilots and aircraft covered in cameras.

The similarities with the was the pilots and aircraft were covered in cameras for steaming and pilots intentionally taking off with parachutes with the intention to jump out in flight is a stark similarity.

Indeed. It was a very controlled situation. Obviously it would crash into the (presumably) unpopulated area below, posing no real threat to any civilians, whereas Jacob's plane hypothetically could've flown a while before losing fuel over somewhere other than a sparsely populated area...

CarlosSi wrote:

zeke wrote:

FGITD wrote:

Hard to compare the two. The YouTuber intentionally bailed with no plan to recover the aircraft. He was out to create a plane crash video.

Not having the FAA’s OK is a problem in itself, but the Red Bull stunt didn’t set out to crash any aircraft. Two planes set off with two pilots, the stunt being that the pilots swap aircraft. One of them succeeded, the other didn’t and landed by parachute while the aircraft crashed.

The aircraft were fitted with a large extended drag brake from aircraft with an autopilot setup that the aircraft would remain in a vertical dive. Without a pilot onboard they would crash and be destroyed. The aircraft did have a tail chute installed that could be remotely activated however the impact would still destroy the aircraft.

The red bull event was setup for live streaming, with the pilots and aircraft covered in cameras.

The similarities with the was the pilots and aircraft were covered in cameras for steaming and pilots intentionally taking off with parachutes with the intention to jump out in flight is a stark similarity.

Indeed. It was a very controlled situation. Obviously it would crash into the (presumably) unpopulated area below, posing no real threat to any civilians, whereas Jacob's plane hypothetically could've flown a while before losing fuel over somewhere other than a sparsely populated area...

How would it be burning fuel in the first place with the engine shut down.

Boeing757100 wrote:

WayexTDI wrote:

Boeing757100 wrote:

I disagree, I think prison terms don't seem unreasonable. What they SHOULD do is make him unable to re-apply for a PPL.

I personally disagree: prison sentences cost the community tons of money, do not bring anything back to the community and things like that stunt did not hurt anyone.
Make him work community service will cost much less and will bring much more to the community.

And yes, barred for life from having a pilot's license.

Ok, agreed on the money part, but what if the uncontrolled plane crashed in a more urbanized area or like a school or something? Forget that, imagine if the impact of the plane actually caused a fire and not only destroyed natural parks, but imagine if there was civilization there and injuries/deaths were caused.

But he didn't kill anyone or start a fire. No judge will convict someone on what ifs, only on actual actions and laws in place to punish said actions.

Again, the guy did something stupid and needs to pay for it; sending him to jail make the community pay, not the culprit. For non-violent crimes, I think jail time is useless and costly with no benefits to the community.
Think about it: an inmate in Federal Prison cost on average $39,215 per year in FY2020 (source, can't find data on county jail or state prisons). Instead of having the taxpayers foot the bill, make the culprit pay for his crimes by other means (such as community service) that will cost less and benefit more.