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Comment by shortstuffsushi | Hacker News Reader

I don't know a whole lot about skydiving or piloting (nothing in fact), but to each of your points:

> gave up too early

You and a couple other commenters mention this and not trying to land. Do we know how long it was before he gave up? Did he float 15 minutes before bailing after failing to restart, and that's just not included in the video? I understand landing on a small road would be possible in a plane like this, but since he's over mountains (3rd disclaimer, I don't know this area) - is it likely there would be roads available to him?

> skydiving rig

Is this because he is already a skydiver and/or was going paragliding (is this the same rig? Another thing I don't know). Would it make sense that this is just "what he has," as opposed to owning both a bail out and a sky diving kit?

> gopro on wrist

Wasn't it mounted on the plane dash, and he took it with him when he bailed?

> long/stable freefall

What is the norm for this? My thinking was this was to distance himself from the plane, which he later mentioned "came back around him" after he pulled.

I don't have any opinion either way, but I'm curious to know more about why some of these details are "give aways" on it being fake

View on HN

Generally planes are good gliders. The only reason to bail out is if it is impossible to find an airport/landing strip within glide range and the aircraft is in a remote location where the aircraft crashing won’t matter.

Even in the latter case - there is limited benefit from jumping early vs. gliding towards civilization/possible landing sites.

IIRC dealing with engine out/glide contingencies is part of pilot training and licensing in the US

EDIT: the commenters on the FA also point out several distinct troubleshooting steps that are missing from the video including pre-engine failure signs + recovery steps, radioing ATC for guidance, flying above roads to ensure proximity to off field landing sites, and maintaining an updated list of off field landing sites along the route.

At the very least, several flying mistakes were demonstrated.

> IIRC dealing with engine out/glide contingencies is part of pilot training and licensing in the US

Recently got my Private Pilot License, emergency descents and planning for emergency landings is definitely part of the check ride.

And early, way earlier than I expected as a student. In my flight club at least they taught you engine failure explicitly early on, then practiced it frequently throughout rest of the lessons and training. I. E. My instructor would literally pull out throttle during a different planned exercise which was my signal for "oh crap I guess we are doing engine fail sim now" :-D

There are very very very few situations where I'd imagine trusting my parachuting skills over my Cessna gliding skills. That thing is meant to protect you all the way down.

Congratulations on the pilot’s license!

recently got gifted a plane ride, it was a something something pioneer, a low two seaters, and a dead stick landing was part of the routine, and was almost menial.

> I understand landing on a small road would be possible in a plane like this, but since he's over mountains (3rd disclaimer, I don't know this area) - is it likely there would be roads available to him?

Comments in the article point out several viable landing spots are visible in the video including a (seemingly huge) dry river bed you can see just after the 5 minute mark.

I'm not a pilot (working on it) but my understanding is that most crash landing fatalities occur when the plane clips something like a fence or a power line because they couldn't see it on the approach or they miscalculated the glide angle. This causes the plane to suddenly pitch down and fall like a rock but the stall speed for a 1940s Taylorcraft is around 40 mph so as long as the pilot avoids obstacles, they can touch down and quickly dump enough kinetic energy so that the final impact is more like a slow speed auto collision on a residential street (minus airbags). The plane will be totaled, but the pilot will probably survive.

It's even possible to land up a hill [1] but that area is relatively rocky so I don't know how safe that would be

Edit: Forgot to add, with 40mph stall speed you only really need about a football field worth of space to safely land without totaling the plane, with a decent safety margin to boot.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvKdfa8CoBw

I’d say it’s understandable though that he prefers to jump. The risk of personal injury is probably much lower that way.

Still many reasons to doubt that there even was an engine failure, but that’s a separate question.

I'm not a pilot so I have no clue what is or isn't understandable. But based upon what other pilots are saying, it appears to not be a reasonable reaction in this case.

Beyond that, if you're flying an airplane, I think you have some responsibility to not jump out at the first sign of trouble.

Beyond that, if you're flying an airplane, I think you have some responsibility to not jump out at the first sign of trouble.

As the saying goes, "The captain goes down with the ship."

> Beyond that, if you're flying an airplane, I think you have some responsibility to not jump out at the first sign of trouble.

I agree, and in the video it looks like he abandons ship very quickly. But there could be a section of video edited out.

EDIT: It doesn’t help his moral case that he’s carrying a selfie stick though, and is filming himself as his plane is potentially landing on someone.

Licensed private pilot here. Absolutely not understandable at all. Planes are natural gliders. The only reason to jump out of a plane is if you have 0 chance of landing it safely. Unless you have no other recourse, land the plane.

I don’t know if all pilots are trained to do this, but my instructor literally turned off the engine multiple times during training and had me land without power. Whoever made this video did it for show; incredibly irresponsible.

I’m not a licensed pilot, so I’m just arguing from my intuitive understanding of the risks involved.

> The only reason to jump out of a plane is if you have 0 chance of landing it safely.

I understand that’s the responsible professional attitude. But if it was me in that plane and I saw a 10% risk of serious bodily harm / death in trying to land and a 0.1% risk in jumping, it would be tempting to jump.

As I understand it the landing attempt here would probably be on a dry river bed or a dirt road. That’s not the same thing as turning back to an airfield. There’s serious risk involved.

> I’m not a licensed pilot, so I’m just arguing from my intuitive understanding of the risks involved.

> But if it was me in that plane and I saw a 10% risk of serious bodily harm / death in trying to land and a 0.1% risk in jumping, it would be tempting to jump.

I think your intuition is wildly off base w.r.t. the risks of general aviation and sky diving.

If you exclude experimental aircraft like fighter jets and kit builds, general aviation isn't much more dangerous than riding a motorcycle. The leading causes of death are misjudging the weather and miscalculating fuel because most of a pilot's training isn't in how to fly a plane but how to troubleshoot it midair or land safely if that is impossible.

An unplanned skydive in a mountainous area in Southern California during Santa Ana season? Now, that's risky. (Edit) For perspective, Nevada sky diving companies won't even jump over Black rock desert because of the wind and that's a desert so big and flat that it's used for amateur rocketry in the 100k+ feet range.

> If you exclude experimental aircraft like fighter jets and kit builds, general aviation isn't much more dangerous than riding a motorcycle.

Sure, but now we’re talking about a situation where your engine has already failed… That’s very different.

> Sure, but now we’re talking about a situation where your engine has already failed… That’s very different.

What to do on engine failure is one of the first things they teach you after basic flight lessons. After that many instructors will even simulate surprise engine failure by cutting off the engine at random while the student is trying to learn about some other emergency situation. Engine failure is part of the check rides every pilot needs to pass to get a license.

You said one of the leading causes of death was miscalculating fuel. I.e., engine failure. (I assume you don't mean weight miscalculation)

By that logic the only cause of death in GA is "plane hit the ground."

When the engine stops working because it doesn't get enough fuel because there's nothing left in the tanks, the root cause is not putting enough fuel in the tanks, not engine failure.

> By that logic the only cause of death in GA is "plane hit the ground."

Here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29731719 it seems like you are essentially saying "engine failure is not too dangerous; one of the leading causes of death is running out of fuel".

I did not say running out of fuel should be formally classified as an engine failure. It was more that I supposed that the effect on the airworthiness of their airplane should be approximately the same whether the engine stops due to failure or running out of fuel. So that makes your comment appear contradictory. Hence my prompting for an explanation, I'm quite willing to believe I misunderstood something of your post or about aviation so I didn't intend for it to sound glib.

My apologies, this discussion leans heavily into federally mandated jargon that has very recently been drilled into my head and it's all to easy to forget how overloaded the words are - as an SWE in my day job the irony is almost palpable.

I'm only a flightsimmer but even fighter jets can probably make it to somewhere with the kind of energy he had. A Space Shuttle or a Blackbird might have been a different story. If you're busting through Autobahn at 240mph and the car suddenly goes neutral, trucks coming up behind is going to be quite low on the list of immediate dangers.

I live not too far from where this was supposed to take place, and November is not a bad time for winds. If you go further East (or South as people say here) that may change, but Lompoc -> Mammoth ending somewhere described as "50 miles N of Santa Barbara" doesn't seem like it would take you there.

I only pointed out the Santa Ana winds to emphasize the "unplanned" portion. Even a 10-20 mph gust is enough to bash a skydiver against a rock outcrop, and (in my experience) that's the equivalent of a light morning breeze in mountainous regions.

I think it's pretty obvious this was staged and he very carefully chose the landing spot.

Your intuition here is wrong. Probably the better way to think of it: in a car crash, would you rather be the person in the car or the pedestrian?

While I have never flown a plane nor parachuted, my understanding is that the maneuverability options of both are going to be roughly equivalent, so that either option will have roughly the same ability to choose the site of collision and (for small aircraft) even roughly the same speed at collision. And that makes the choice down to having a layer of metal that can absorb some of the impact for your versus having to be in the exactly correct position to absorb the impact energy best with your body.

Unless cars have ejection seats it's not the same comparison. Pedestrians in this case are potential hikers or people in the area.

Another licensed pilot here (but not a skydiver).

I would have attempted a controlled crash over gentle mountainous terrain like this. You want to dump the aircraft's kinetic energy rapidly but not suddenly -- gliding into the side of a cliff will kill you, but keeping the airplane pointed forward while shearing off the wheels and crumpling the nose is fine. It looked like there were several areas where this would have been relatively safe to attempt. You don't need a nice flat field for a survivable crash.

After you're on the ground, you also need to be able to survive (possibly for days), and then be visible enough to be found and rescued. Staying with the aircraft is usually considered the safer approach, both for visibility as well as the emergency gear that you're supposed to be carrying in the back.

The only terrain where I'd seriously consider bailing out (assuming I had a parachute) is dense forest with no clearings. Surviving a crash like this is incredibly difficult -- you hit a redwood, shear off your wings, and then plummet 250 ft to your death. It'll be hard to spot the wreckage of a small plane from above. Even with a parachute, there's a serious risk of getting stuck in a tree (or impaled by branches). There are basically no good options here.

In short, mountains aren't so bad. But be super careful flying over forests. If this video was a stunt, there's a reason why he decided to stage it over mountains rather than a forest.

> I would have attempted a controlled crash over gentle mountainous terrain like this. You want to dump the aircraft's kinetic energy rapidly but not suddenly -- gliding into the side of a cliff will kill you, but keeping the airplane pointed forward while shearing off the wheels and crumpling the nose is fine. It looked like there were several areas where this would have been relatively safe to attempt. You don't need a nice flat field for a survivable crash.

This sounds pretty scary though… If you were an experienced skydiver, with your gear on, don’t you think you’d be tempted to jump instead?

>you were an experienced skydiver, with your gear on

You would controlled crash the plane because you would know that jumping over mountainous terrain with vegetation is a great way to break a bone which is going to make getting the heck out of there really, really suck.

A plane like pictured is going to stall at like 40mph so that will be your approximate crash speed, which is really damn survivable in an aircraft with a 4pt belt to keep you off the hard bits of the cabin.

Risk of some bruising and maybe a concussion beats risk of broken ankle any day.

No, even then it’s the wrong call. You’re forgetting what happens when you land after jumping out of the plane if it’s not staged. No cell service, no epirb, no flares, no first aid kit, etc. One broken leg because you floated into the dense trees and you’re dead.

Experienced sky divers get to choose their jump points and landing sites. They don’t get thrown out of the plane at an arbitrary time with no preselected landing side.

I think the risk of dying in a crash are still too high. If I had a parachute and a knew there was nobody else who would be hurt if I bailed out, I think the parachute is safer. The plane is going to crash either way.

You're in a metal shell in the plane. Even the small trees can impale you under a parachute.

I used to work in SAR. I've seen crash sites where tree branches punctured through helicopter blades.

It's not so cut and dry as you might think.

I have plenty of hours flying planes (unlicensed - while doing aerial work and playing around to kill time thanks to my instructor pilot), and have a limited amount of experience skydiving.

One thing in these comments I haven't seen said: F*K that plane. Off runway landing has significant risk. Parachute is so close to 0.0 risk that you do it just for fun on a day off. I wouldn't do an off runway landing just for fun on my day off.

The thing is staged, no question. The guy knows he messed up and will pay for it. But if I had to decide between my life and protecting a bunch of metal tubes and (fabric | aluminium, not sure), I know what I would do.

As a skydiver, I think it’s important to note he didn’t have an emergency chute but a regular sport one. They are extremely maneuverable and if there is a small clearing or riverbed nearby (he looked down for such a thing) the risk of injury is nearly non existent for an experienced skydiver.

The whole thing looks planned, but if I were in the same situation I’d definitely be jumping over trying to crash land a cheap plane in a riverbed or clearing.

>>"But if it was me in that plane and I saw a 10% risk of serious bodily harm / death in trying to land and a 0.1% risk in jumping, it would be tempting to jump."

Of course. Point is, risk does not actually turn that way. Parachuting into rocks is not exactly safe and easy either! Vast majority of pilots are much more trained to safely land than to safely parachute. Movies give us this idea that you pull a cord and land feather like. That is empathically not the case. Especially for an untrained person, parachuting on safe ground will break your limbs virtually guaranteed.

Small airplanes have very low stall speed. If you fly into the wind you can have your land / crash speed very low and very controlled, you are trained to find best possible spot, and are buckled inside metal chassis.

I genuinely believe most licensed pilots would stay inside the damn plane :)

> Vast majority of pilots are much more trained to safely land than to safely parachute

So if the person is an experienced skydiver, doesn't the equation change towards ditching the plane?

Mind you, no one is arguing whether the video is real or not, that's conclusive that it's likely fake. But what if an experience skydiver was actually in this situation?

if skydiver has a pilots license he will always prefer to try to land it, unless the wings broke off

I am not an experienced professional skydiver so I really cannot speak to that. :-/

I think he should still follow the procedure far further than showed in video (where he doesn't follow ANY), and I still feel he should have tried far harder to find a landing spot - cessna 152 has 11 to 1 glide ratio, which means for every foot of altitude you can travel 11 feet of distance. I imagine his airplane has roughly comparable gliding distance so given his original height, he had a LOT of time and options he seemed to have immediately squandered. At best, assuming reality, that feels like a yahoo parachuter rather than methodical pilot, and not advice / approach to follow.

The vast majority of private pilots are not trained parachutists and don't fly regularly with parachutes.

I think an important thing to note here is that as a pilot, bailing out does not absolve you of your responsibility for the safe operation of the aircraft, so if it hits something or someone when it goes down, your still on the hook for that.

Its also important to remember that wilderness does not mean people are not there, so if you do something stupid thinking noones around so noone can get hurt, you might still hurt someone.

> Its also important to remember that wilderness does not mean people are not there, so if you do something stupid thinking noones around so noone can get hurt, you might still hurt someone.

And just because people aren't directly in the path of a falling plane doesn't mean that the pilot isn't putting people's lives at risk. The recent rains have improved the situation a bit, but a plane crash in the remote mountains of Southern California? That's how you get wildfires.

Most USAAF WWII training manuals all tell pilots to bail out in preference to trying to glide to a landing at night or over rough terrain, because the odds of surviving a landing under those conditions are poor.

Mind you, those planes stall at much higher speeds, and those pilots all wore parachutes and trained on how to bail out if needed. But I wouldn't go so far as to say there's never any reason to jump.

I agree the video looks intentional.

Irrelevant, this isn’t a high speed aircraft, which totally changes the risk calculus of a crash landing.

It's also not being flown in warzone...wtf

The manuals I refer to advise a bail-out under some conditions, even flying stateside. For example, this manual is for students training in the AT-6:

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth873939/m1/76/

"Never attempt a night landing except on a lighted field. So if you are completely lost at night, you have no other choice than to jump. Climb to at least 3000ft (above the terrain), trim your airplane for level flight, cut the switches, and bail out. It may be heartbreaking to crash a fine airplane -- but it beats cashing in your own chips."

"If your fuel supply is running low, if the terrain (mountains, swamps, water, or heavily timbered area) offers no possible landing place, you must bail out."

"If there is no suitable field and the weather is closing in from all sides, climb to 3000ft, trim your airplane, cut the switches, and bail out."

keyword is "night"

Military pilots are gonna be wearing parachutes. Civilian private pilots don't.

Acceptable risk for military aviation is not the same as acceptable risk for civilian aviation.

That may be perspective from outside but not I think for actual pilots. I have not finished my flight training yet but already I've had enough prep to be way way way more comfortable gliding a controllable predictable metal cocoon designed to protect me, over parachuting :O. I think for all but experienced pros, parachute is a guaranteed personal injury. Movies are way way off when it comes to ability of a random person to safely parachute even in most controlled situation.

I thought you were going to post Steve Henry's stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zDo7hkmCNY

There's a great clip of him parallel parking a tail dragger at some fly in on the side of a mountain somewhere in his videos.

For engine failures turning in to fatalities, the biggest cause are stalls/spins where the pilot fails to maintain airspeed, unload the wings and stay coordinated.

Flying the aircraft just above stall speed into the side of a barn is far more survivable than entering a stall or spin at 200ft.

Pilots panic and yank back the yoke in denial that they're going down. Or they try to “stretch the glide” in hopes of making it back to an airport. Or if the engine failure is on take-off, they don’t shove the nose down fast enough (you literally have seconds to do so before airspeed gets dangerously low)

I'm talking about crash landings in general. It doesn't matter what caused the emergency landing, what makes them dangerous isn't crashing into something at the end, but snagging an obstacle right before touchdown that sends the plane cockpit first into the ground. Power lines don't care about the state of the power plant.

Casual skydiver with no piloting experience here.

> > skydiving rig

> Is this because he is already a skydiver and/or was going paragliding (is this the same rig? Another thing I don't know). Would it make sense that this is just "what he has," as opposed to owning both a bail out and a sky diving kit?

Not really. Those are really different material, with really different design constraints. Skydiving parachutes open slowly so they aren't a good fit for an emergency situation because if you have to leave the plane too low, you're pretty much dead, and as long as your plane is still high in the sky, I guess there's little reason to leave it…

> > long/stable freefall

> What is the norm for this? My thinking was this was to distance himself from the plane, which he later mentioned "came back around him" after he pulled.

AFAIK safety parachute don't open well at high fall speed (unlike skydiving ones) so you want to open it quickly and not enjoy your freefall.

Jumping in that terrain with a safety parachute would be pretty dangerous. You don't have any control, so just as well crash the plane in a flat spot.

Skydiving rigs are also big which make them annoying to fly with. You can tell early on in the video that he's basically on top of the yoke, which would be extremely obnoxious for obvious ergonomic reasons. The idea that someone would "always" fly like that (as the pilot claims) is ... dubious.

Also, there are other videos of this guy flying without that rig, which doesn't help his case.

> You and a couple other commenters mention this and not trying to land. Do we know how long it was before he gave up?

It's true that there might be video cuts, but just visually guesstimating, there's very little altitude difference between when the propeller stops and when he jumps.

Paragliding gear is even more bulkier than a skydiving rig, there's various types depending on the flying you want to do, but here's a typical example: https://qefimagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/303/2018/0...

Even if he is a skydiver and pilot, you want to use the right tool for the job

- skydiving rig: larger, main handle is out of sight, has more snag points, built to stop you from terminal velocity (~120mph/200km) so the opening distance is higher

- emergency parachute: small, usually just one handle which you can see and very hard to snag on anything, meant to be opened in under 3s after jumping, definitely not for terminal velocity kind of speeds

> Wasn't it mounted on the plane dash, and he took it with him when he bailed?

I re-watched the video now and you're right, it's a selfie stick in his hand, as he moves the camera from one hand to the other. Another "unlikely things a pilot does in an emergency" from my side then.

> What is the norm for this? My thinking was this was to distance himself from the plane, which he later mentioned "came back around him" after he pulled.

This ties in to the parachute type mostly, for rescue situations with emergency parachutes you want to pull ASAP, as the plane will usually fly away anyway (excepting maybe spins, but then it's pretty hard to exit anyway)

> Another "unlikely things a pilot does in an emergency" from my side then.

Well, these youtubers are strange people. It doesn’t strike me as that odd he’d consider his fame before his safety.

The alternative scenario is also that he crashed a plane just for views; grabbing video gear is rather sane in comparison.

> - emergency parachute: small, usually just one handle which you can see and very hard to snag on anything, meant to be opened in under 3s after jumping, definitely not for terminal velocity kind of speeds

Are you sure about that? Then you would have to bring some planes to stall speed first in order be able to bail out. Sounds like a huge flaw…

Softie parachutes indicates that the effectively risk free bail out conditions are 1000ft AGL and 100MPH, with a lower speed requiring more altitude. They don't specify a max speed, but it's worth pointing out that 100MPH is pretty slow comparatively.

> Do we know how long it was before he gave up?

We don't need to know this. We can clearly see ample altitude at the time he abandoned the plane. Although there are reasons to jump at great altitude (severe fire, etc.) none of those reasons are apparent here.

When a competent driver loses engine power while driving they do not immediately stop their vehicle in the middle of the road. They will use the available momentum (pulling to the shoulder or whatever) for the benefit of their own safety and the safety of others, and ground vehicles are deliberately designed to achieve this. The analogy for (conventional, fixed wing) aircraft is altitude; this pilot wasted available altitude for no discernable reason despite the fact that he had a perfectly functional glider.

No competent pilot would do that. So the best case here is an incompetent pilot that shouldn't hold a license. All other possibilities are some form of attention seeking fraud and also reckless endangerment.

Look at 3:33 into the video, about where he's about to ditch it.

It's easy to identify the Y shaped delta of the mountain ridges just 2 clicks north of the Manzana School Camp, with the plane travelling westwards. 34.8081872, -119.9438522.

Given the near service ceiling altitude the dude had plenty of opportunity to double back to eg 34.7683290, -120.1101663 . Not exactly sure how much gliding range it has, but can go to just over 60km/h before stalling, and can't be radically different from a Cessna which will do "1.5 nautical miles per 1,000 feet of altitude above ground level". The landing gear appears made for grass fields.

Of course, one might speculate, given lack of in-plane footage and everything else, he could also not have throttled the airplane and landed it normally instead of pulling this pathetic stunt. Ie it appears reasonable to assume that the entire thing is a complete fabrication.

Who carries a hip altimeter (a few frames of 4:03) and full parachute when flying, as well as covering every angle of the "emergency departure" with GoPros, not a single frame of the "emergency" instruments despite another GoPro in full view, freefalls for ages instead of taking their time to assess etc, then avoids several flat spots including flat riverbeds that were a great alternative to doubling back if completely panicking on basic arithmetics, only to land in dangerous bushes instead "for the views". And then complains of being so so thirsty whilst carrying the whole chute around in his "life and death" situation.

Look at the YouTube history, the guy's pathological prankster.

Lots of camping sites and such in the area, just look at the coords in your favourite map provider. It was reckless beyond belief.

Should I not be wrong with my analysis (having spent a few hours reviewing this), I hope he goes to prison for a very long time.

Why should he go to prison? Faking an airplane crash for YouTube views, while clearly in bad taste, doesn't seem worthy of jail time.

Reckless self endangerment maybe? But that also doesn't seem to rise to the level of "put you in jail".

If the crash was intentional, then he's certainly liable for violating littering laws by depositing a moderate amount of wreckage in the mountains which he didn't clean up. Again, not worthy of prison time. Probably a hefty fine though.

Last I can think of is if he makes a fraudulent insurance claim; in that case then yeah he might be eligible for jail time, but I don't think we know whether he filed an insurance claim in the first place.

> Why should he go to prison?

"Reckless endangerment", or whatever it's called when you let a plane crash where it may -- i.e, potentially onto people -- in stead of bringing it to a controlled glider landing? If you let your car coast on in traffic and bailed out at speed, in stead of rolling it to a stop on the hard shoulder, then you'd get caught for dangerous driving, wouldn't you? (Should you not?)

A follow up nitpick question, would a hip altimeter be part of the jump suit he's wearing already - assuming the "he just wore what he had" theory, which it seems isn't plausible, but just playing hypotheticals.

Fair point. I guess he should have said: "I never go solo flying without my jump rig" instead of "I never go flying without my parachute".

Unless he was in Alaska, there are always roads relatively close by from a gliding perspective.

For more perspective, in the mainland US, the furthest you can get from a McDonald’s, let alone a rode, is 107 miles as the crow flies.

A Cessna can glide 9000 feet per 1000 feet altitude loss so at 10k feet that thing can go roughly 17 miles.

A 17 mile radius gives you 900 square miles to find a place to land. Even deep in the Rockies wilderness areas I’m familiar with, there are going to be several forest service roads available and plenty of natural clearings with that kind of range.

> Wasn't it mounted on the plane dash, and he took it with him when he bailed?

I had the exact same thought. If you look at 3m53s in the video, he has both a camera in his hand and the other GoPro remains on the dash.

Another set of comments discuss that traditionally pilots who might consider using a parachute generally bring a different type of parachute on board, and not one that would be used by normal skydivers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29730298

> 3m53s

Hmm, I see what you're saying - is that a second camera or a mount though?

https://imgur.com/a/REa64jn

Its a GoPro Fusion 360° we never see any video from.

Skydiver and pilot here. A skydiving rig can't be used for paragliding. Also a skydiving rig is incredibly uncomfortable worn as pilot of the plane. Pilots use emergency parachutes that are smaller and designed to be used sitting in an airplane seat. Pilot rigs are used primarily for aerobatics.

The most suspect thing is jumping with a selfie stick.

It's already established that he's a Youtuber and has cameras, why would you not take all your cameras with you when jumping out of the plane? Not even for the cool factor, a gopro costs like over $500, why would you not take it with you?

Because if it were an actual emergency, survival is your main priority, "great footage of it" isn't a priority at all.

And:

(1) GoPros are a lot cheaper than $500.

(2) GoPros are a lot cheaper than any flyable airplane.

Of course, I wouldn't fly in a plane with a pilot who had and used a selfie stick in flight, so my judgement clearly isn't up to that of YouTube Famous Stars.

(1) GoPro Hero10 has MSRP of 500$

(2) He (supposedly) couldn't save the plane, but taking the GoPro takes 5s.

> used a selfie stick in flight

Everyone keeps talking about selfie stick, it was just the normal leg attachment, not a "selfie stick": https://i.imgur.com/hOkcxOa.png

> "great footage of it" isn't a priority at all.

Where is this "Great footage"? He's literally just holding the camera by the leg attachment. Half the falling footage is just his feet or chest, and that's already the heavily trimmed version, which I assume he only kept the better part of the footage.

Again, to me it just seems like he grabbed whatever he could quickly and jumped out, which is a natural instinct.

You want to pull the cord a few seconds after exiting. 1...2...3...pull. Freefall is not the goal when bailing in case of an emergency.

Especially in a case like this when you need to hike your way out. Then why not pull ASAP and then fly back towards civilization and look for the best possible landing spot.

You can also see much better landing spots when he's hanging in the shoot that he could easily make. So why the hell did he end up in a bush like that?

And why go look for the plane? Like just focus on getting to safety. Nothing in this video makes sense.

> And why go look for the plane?

You would attempt to go back to civilization ASAP...Unless you'd need to, for example, reenable the magnetos/fuel switch in order to avoid "embarrassing" questions from the authorities.

I mean, if you were far from civilization, it's probably best to wait for rescue next to the crashed plane, no? Much easier to spot from the air.

From the video it doesn't even look like he called atc. But to answer your question, yes. He would tell atc where he's going and where he can be found.

The thing about engine out situations is that it's not that hard to get to civilization before you bail out. These light aircraft glide great, he should have been able to ditch (or land) closer to a town or road.

Are these switches really robust enough that "flipped during crash" isn't a likely explanation you could give to the authorities?

Needing to return to the crash site to destroy the evidence feels like a very forced narrative to me (though I know nothing about flying).

some are. The mixture nob for example could easily survive this especially in a slow splane like this.

But I agree it's not the strongest argument

Wouldn’t you want to go back to the plane to see if anything survived the crash that will be useful to help you get back to civilization?

Radio, food, water, warmer clothes, first aid kit, and weapons are all things that are plausible to have in the plane that would be nice to have when trying to either hike out or get help.

There's a simple explanation for both. Freefall is more dramatic and you want to be low enough that you get some good shots of the plane crashing into terrain for your video. Both help increase view count.

Landing in a bush and climbing out from bramble is also more dramatic.

Unless you're a skydiver by trade in an emergency situation and you fall back on what is familiar to you?

Let's say instead they did pull the chute immediately after bailing and then used the extra altitude to sail back to safety. Would you be more inclined to believe the stunt was real?

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