A YouTuber who parachuted from a small airplane over California mountains final 12 months after claiming engine bother purposely caused the plane to crash so he might record it, the Federal Aviation Administration stated in a latest letter.
The April 11 letter to Trevor Jacob says Jacob’s non-public pilot certificates, or license, has been revoked.
“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’s emergency order of revocation letter says.
The Taylorcraft BL-65 single-engine plane left Lompoc in Santa Barbara County that day and crashed in Los Padres National Forest.
The New York Times reported the FAA letter Wednesday.
The video, titled “I Crashed My Plane,” was posted Dec. 23 on Jacob’s YouTube channel. Questions about whether or not the crash was intentional have been raised and cited in media experiences and aviation web sites.
In it, Jacob, the pilot and sole occupant, is flying the single-engine plane when the video seems to present the propeller cease spinning. Jacob makes feedback, a number of of that are bleeped, together with one about an engine’s being out.
He then opens the door and jumps from the plane, recording himself falling and utilizing a parachute. Cameras hooked up to the now-empty plane present it crashing into the mountains.
Jacob didn’t instantly reply to messages despatched to an e-mail tackle hooked up to the YouTube web page late Wednesday or to messages despatched to what seems to be his Instagram account and to an internet site that seems to be associated to him.
An legal professional listed within the FAA letter as apparently representing Jacob stated he couldn’t touch upon Jacob’s affairs.
Jacob stated in an announcement in January that “I’ll happily say I did not purposely crash my plane for views on YouTube,” The New York Times reported on the time.
Jacob has marketed himself on his YouTube channel as an adventurer and an Olympic athlete and the founding father of an adventure-themed web site.
He competed for Team USA in snowboarding on the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and got here in ninth place in males’s snowboardcross.
The “I Crashed My Plane,” video had greater than 1.8 million views as of Thursday night.
The FAA letter says that “during this flight you opened the left side pilot door before you claimed the engine had failed.”
The letter says Jacob made no try to contact air visitors management on an emergency frequency, to restart the engine by growing airflow over the propeller or to search for areas to safely land “even though there were multiple areas within gliding range in which you could have made a safe landing.”
He additionally placed on a sport parachute backpack earlier than the flight, hooked up a number of cameras to the surface of the plane and used a “selfie-stick” to record after he jumped, the letter says.
Jacob recovered the wreckage of the plane and disposed of it and retrieved the cameras that had been hooked up to it earlier than the flight, the letter says.
In the video uploaded to YouTube, Jacob says on the bottom, “I’m just so happy to be alive,” pans to the wilderness and says there’s nowhere to land and “that’s why I always freakin’ fly with a parachute.”
The FAA letter cited what it referred to as Jacob’s “egregious and intentional actions” in saying he lacks the {qualifications} for airman certification.
The FAA doesn’t have prosecutorial authority and might’t file felony prices, the company has stated. It can impose civil penalties, such because the fines levied towards unruly plane passengers, and it could droop or revoke pilots’ flight certificates.
A pilot certificates is required to fly solo.
The crash occurred deep in Los Padres National Forest, and the plane was eliminated earlier than the video was posted to YouTube, stated Sean Aidukas, the assistant director of aviation security for the U.S. Forest Service.
Planes do crash or make emergency landings on Forest Service lands, and typically the wreckage is hauled out by different plane operated by non-public corporations working with insurance coverage corporations, he stated. It’s not clear how the plane within the November incident was eliminated.
A spokesman for Los Padres National Forest referred to as it a harmful stunt, and he famous that anybody who deliberately causes a wildfire will be held answerable for all the firefighting prices.
“Thankfully this incident did not spark a fire,” spokesman Andrew Madsen stated.