A YouTuber purposely crashed his plane in California, FAA says

You can frame-by-frame on YT by pressing '.', but yes, still an amazing catch by parent

Hah, I must admit that I didn't catch it the previous times I watched the video when I heard about the incident; It wasn't until I learned he had extinguishers strapped to the back of his legs that I went hunting for them in the video.

>You have absolutely amazing eyes.

blushes thanks

If you search YouTube for “Trevor Jacob” there is several pilot folks who have spent tons of time going through every little detail of the video. They’ve reconstructed the flight path, where it landed, you name it. It was one of those “hive mind” kind of deals and it was fun to follow during the month or so after the original video was posted.

All I can think is the extra weight on his legs my break his tib/fib, which would not be good.

That's anyones guess.

I doubt that by the time he got too the plane there would have been anything left worth extinguishing?

Perhaps too prevent a forest fire? Although that would've been equally futile.

Maybe someone who intentionally crashes a plan for a few YouTube clicks isn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier after all.

To get to the gopros if the plane was on fire.

An extinguisher that small is basically useless except for very temporarily beating back the fire to get to something/someone.

Possibly not fire extinguishers. They might be smoke canisters, used for a nice visual effect by sky divers.

It appears that he actually made a ton of effort to prevent a fire from erupting from the crashed plane, which is really, ironically, the smoking gun that this was a planned crash.

For instance, the apparent reason why the engine stopped working isn't due to mechanical failure of the engine (very common in old ass prop planes, just as your Hyundai might blow up, due to oil starvation, spun bearings, rods grenading itself, etc), but rather running out of fuel. He purposefully brought not enough fuel to kill the engine, and secondarily prevent a fire. It was also strongly speculated that he filled one of the fuel tanks with water, probably in an attempt to prevent a fire from erupting.

Might be some water bottles.

If you control the flight path of the plane before ditching it should be possible to pick the relative point of impact.

And most (all?) parachutes allow the capability for the operator to control direction of flight and (relative) rate of descent.

Considering the stunt he pulled it seems he was confident he could do both.

The plane is slightly banking, so it's just flying circles slowly spiraling downwards from his point of ejection

This area is mountainous with very steep hills and deep valleys. If you stay close to the height of the mountain tops the plane won’t get very far.

Ah, yeah back in the early days of youtube 1.5+ million views was a huge amount of revenue for creators.

It depends a lot on the genre. Some pay $3-5 CPM I believe (so, $3k-5k per million). And that's just the youtube ads; once a channel gets a lot of subscribers they can attract external sponsors as well.

And YouTube is one of the highest paying platforms.

https://twitter.com/MrBeast/status/1484616451281588227

You're not factoring in the "He's the guy that crashed a plane!" impact on all his future earnings.

He was speculating to accumulate.

It was a Taylorcraft BL64. My brief Google search suggested similar aircraft are selling for 16 to 30k.

I would normally agree with you but I feel like there’s a moral issue with what is essentially monetizing criminal activity. At a minimum, it should be demonetized and YouTube shouldn’t show any ads either.

> This is a dangerous thought. There is already too much decision making of what is allowed on our social platform by the big corps

In this case though the FAA has made the decision, he didn't do something in bad taste - he did something that could have been very dangerous to others, could have started a major fire, and was illegal (or at least broke the FAA rules enough for him to loose his license). And the reason he did that was (almost certainly) to make a YouTube video - I think YouTube would be justified from kicking him off their platform for this.

This guy crashed a plane for profit. The fact that US law doesn't seem to have any meaningful sanction for him is not a reason for it to stay up.

They should delete the video. And I really don't understand the argument that they shouldn't stop him using their platform; my goodness if Youtube was mine he'd be gone and I wouldn't for a second wonder if there was any meaningful free speech implication for removing it.

He is dangerous, and the allure of more views on youtube made him do a dangerous thing. I'd be like: "OK, you're not my customer anymore".

> YouTube should at best demonetize the video, and only if it does that consistently based on a public policy.

Exactly.

I'm generally in favour of youtube removing objectionable material, or at least corralling it somewhere as they already do with their half-assed "mature content" filter, but it absolutely must be done on a policy basis which is written down upfront and made clear to uploaders, and subject to fair reviews. Doing it on outrage based case by case basis is just enraging to all involved.

And it's not the actual content of this video which is objectionable, but the circumstances under which it was made. Possibly it contravenes UK rules on profiting from crime if it's monetized: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN02...

- but (a) it's not in our jurisdiction and (b) he hasn't actually been convicted yet.

demonitization seems the best option I guess. Leave it up as a display of stupidity, and aviation history. But don't let him profit of something illegal

No, it is a just for justice to decide, not a private platform to do their own law...

Ad revenue varies widely. Somewhere between $1k/million views and $10k/million views is most common.

Don't forget that each view on a big video is a chance of a subscription by that user, which leads to more views on followup videos, more sharing, more chance of sponsorships, etc. So the total revenue earned by a 'hit' video is actually much larger than it appears.

> Frankly shame on YouTube for allowing the video to remain on their platform

I was nodding until this bit... why do you think YouTube should censor this? It's a real video of a real thing that he did (which he misrepresents the circumstances of). I could possibly get on board with "put an explanatory note next to it" or "don't let him get ad revenue from it", but what possible reason would there be for deleting it?

He spends most of his time worrying about taping it for YouTube.

> he was lucky enough to pick an aircraft with docile stall characteristics

Evidence suggests he may have bought the plane explicitly for this stunt. He's an experienced sky diver, so I imagine he knows what kind of plane is good for a pilot looking to bail.

Also pretty obvious that this guy is no outdoorsman. He complains about not being able to get signal so he can call 911, but then he walks down a ravine and then down a dry river bed. In that situation, you need to climb UP, not down, and get as much elevation and clearance as possible.

> AMEL IA here.

If you're not one of Tony Stark's AIs, what might this mean?

Exactly! I wonder why he didn't at least act like he ran out of options before bailing out. "OK, there's an airport over there." <banks slightly> "Oh crap, I'm losing too much altitude! I'll never make it! Time to bail out! Buy a Ridge Wallet!"

Also:

> “During this flight, you opened the left side pilot door before you claimed the engine had failed,” the F.A.A. wrote.

> A private pilot's license is a privilege

I hate calling things like this a privilege. It's licensed and regulated for the safety and benefit of the people who fly and live underneath airspace (all of us).

There are too many things involving the government that have turned into privileges where it takes knowing someone or being able to afford access to obtain action.

The FAA are not going to come down on you hard if you panic, but if you're dumb enough to make it clear that you're faking that panic for youtube views, they're going to throw every single book possible at you.

And I doubt this is the final action. FAA can't criminally prosecute but they can refer to the DOJ.

The NTSB doesn’t even travel to every GA fatal accident, let alone one reported as an old T-craft engine failure with no injuries (assuming the case where he didn’t post the video).

Of course, without the intent of posting the video, that plane doesn’t crash, so the NTSB doesn’t come looking then either.

It's the times. And yeah, for all that it looks and sounds like this might have been relatively survivable with a quick evacuation, there's still a little horror in that cabin view.

Yes he probably crashed the plane intentionally, but that’s not the regulation he broke.

I think he's suggesting that the FAA regulation he violated was operating the plane in a careless or reckless manner. He did that by intentionally crashing his plane.

I am suggesting that it may be possible to safely, carefully, and legally crash a plane in a controlled scenario.

For instance: https://youtu.be/zuynxwQMad4

I could argue that there are cases where you could crash a plane in careful and not reckless manner. That is with extreme control, planning and probably minimising the potential damages such as environmental by removing as much hazardous stuff as possible. Plus having extensive planning on operation. Still unlikely to get approved, but I see it to be possible.

Yes, but the comment I was replying to was discussing scenarios other than the one in the article.

It's from FAA crash test involving DC-7 https://youtu.be/Z-So3btcvCQ

I agree. I read all 414 comments (go me). The closest two I found were:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29737601 - "these arguments from pilots or enthusiasts are all so weak"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29742283 - "I'm impressed how quickly folks here are able to arrive at the most certain conclusion that this was staged! While that explanation seems possible (and not unlikely), I keep coming back to Hanlon's Razor"

It's probably because the "pilot" role plays an airplane emergency like a Hollywood-primed layman audience imagines it.

For anyone who has ever flown in a small airplane (even as a passenger) this collides strongly with how things are in done in the real world.

I really loved that guy. He died a few years ago after a series of strokes. He had worked his whole life in a paper factory at a time when 'personal protection' had entirely different connotations and vats with acid were large and open and real men bleached the paper for the cardboard with utter disregard for their own health.

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kappa_Triton

So I can see some of what made him do these things (with alarming regularity I might add). His name was Jakob, which is a traditional Dutch version of my own and right after I moved there we hit it off as if we'd known each other for years, I still don't know why. When the front gable of his house became too dangerous the whole neighborhood chipped in with materials and work and we built him a new front for his house for a ridiculously low budget, which was both a fun project and made everybody on the street that much closer to each other.

I'd bet that if we could have gotten them together your neighbor and my neighbor would be able to talk for hours :) These old-timers are interesting, they all have their stories and it is definitely worth making time for them.

Wow. I could have easily been on a list like that a couple of times, one that stands out for me because I never saw it coming was uncoupling a loaded trailer that had 50 Kg on the balance when coupling it (which is a pretty safe amount, not too much, not too light). The load had shifted just a little bit backwards and after releasing the latch on the hitch if absolutely zoomed upwards. It missed me by a very small (uncomfortably small) fraction of an inch and if I had stood another 2" closer to the hitch it would have hit me full on. Very scary. The chains with which the machine on the back had been secured had gone a bit slack and the drive apparently was enough to shift the center of gravity to just behind the axle, that's a mistake I will never make again, always support a trailer front and back if you have to uncouple while it is still loaded.

A lot of crushed, fell and electrocuted. All of them preventable I'm sure... unfortunate.

Reminds me of the series of tiktok videos with the song “Come with me, and you’ll be, in a world of OSHA violations.”

Yes. I used to work for a company involved in a large, nationwide infrastructure project.

They had company-wide reporting on OHS incidents, and it was a daily litany of absurd and tragic accidents. Fatalities weren't common, but injuries and close calls were very common.

Most common: falls and electrocution.

Sorting by ascending date, 12/31/1969 appears to have been an exceedingly dangerous day to be working on literally anything at all.

(/s)

You still have to make the leap that this guy who crashed his plane has the same level of awareness of the danger of heavy machinery as "most people" as the original commenter claims. With this being such an outlying incident that is honestly hard to do. Or in other words, I have trouble believing that many people could be as ignorant as the guy in the video. It's one thing to say that most people don't know how dangerous an escalator is but another to say most people don't know how dangerous deliberately crashing a plane is.

I get arguments if I raise any food-safety-related topic. If I even politely suggest something, I get screeching as a response.

My father taught me something a long time ago:

There are three kinds of people in the world. 1) those that do not learn from their mistakes. 2) those that learn from their mistakes. 3) those that learn from the mistakes of others.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of people are in categories 1 and 2. Very few people are capable of avoiding risks they haven't personally encountered at least once.

There would have to be harm...I mean I think so. Like if he made sure nobody got hurt? No damage, no risk?

Why would you need to make that criminal? It's already a crime to do something criminal like hurting someone else whether it's with a plane, a car, or a knife.

Its his-ish property. The FAA got him for the flying equivalent of reckless driving, but its not a felony to crash your car.

Its just expensive as hell, and the knock on fines will only add onto it.

He littered and left his litter there for several days.

> That's for tampering with aircraft "used, operated, or employed in interstate, overseas, or foreign air commerce"

Is that not an OR requirement of paragraph (1), meaning that "sets fire to, damages, destroys, disables, or wrecks any aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States" would be sufficient on its own? That was my initial reading of the paragraph, but I'm not hugely familiar with US law.

"Special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States" seems to be defined here:

> “special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States” includes any of the following aircraft in flight: (A) a civil aircraft of the United States. (B) an aircraft of the armed forces of the United States. (C) another aircraft in the United States.[...]

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/46501#2

>Unless the plane was purchased outright,

It may very well have been. Used GA planes aren't cheap but they aren't thaaaat expensive.

>the bank will want to make a claim.

It would take a very foolish bank to write a loan on a plane (or boat) that is secured by said object. It's probably secured by something else and even if it's not they probably won't care as long as the payments keep coming. Remember, they're money dealers, not plane dealers. They'd rather have the money.

No more than you're allowed to claim insurance after setting fire to your property.

Him making a false claim would be insurance fraud, but if it's bought on a loan and there's an insurance policy favoring the bank, then the bank definitely can and will make a claim - it's just that the insurance company will then attempt to recover the money from this pilot since he's at fault, and is likely to succeed.

Are you oppressing his right to identify as Laura Smith?!

I don't think that we can assume that even if submitted on the day of purchase, that a change of registration would be processed immediately.

There's evidence that he purchased an old plane with lots of problems explicitly for this stunt.

...Then get a two seater, hide the other guy off camera, and if you really insist on the narrative angle, stage a crash site?

The thing I don't understand is the destruction of the plane really doesn't add anything... Why invite the downstream complexity and bureaucratic ire of the most notoriously iron fisted, merciless, detail oriented, and humorless federal agency out there?

Like I get adrenaline is a hell of a drug. It can be a great high. That adrenaline spike is a completely different spike when you're getting your wings clipped, because you've demonstrated a remarkably poor grasp of cost/benefit analysis.

Like, I'm more open than most to the freedom to do stupid things as long as no one gets hurt... You kinda have to make a credible effort to guarantee that though. IIRC from the original video and thread, the plane actually ends up looping or spiraling around below him at some point, meaning he apparently didn't even bother to trim the aircraft/lock the controls for a predictable trajectory to impact.

Even having that thought on camera would have gone a long way toward getting this whole thing further away from scandalous controversy territory, because it would have at least demonstrated forethought and concern for what the plane would do afterward.

The crime here, in a sense, is being a perfect example of what not to be in my estimation. If the FAA does nothing, it kinda presents a major image problem. Which is bitter, I might add, because optics based justice is the worst kind in my estimation.

Wasting a perfectly good airplane by crashing it into a national park. A stunt not worth watching, or enjoying.

Well, except for the lion.

Kind of a strawman:

1. Not true, it's not like safety standards were a thing back then. Even in today’s circuses safety isn't a guarantee.

2. It was just one example. Encierros (street bull runs) are still a thing. Plenty dangerous and lots of people involved, even without retribution.

You keep mentioning the proof of intent. Intent of what? The FAA revoked his license for operating the plane in a "careless or reckless manner". The pilot was judged on the results of his actions, not on coulda/woulda/shoulda intent.

The popularity of such phrases as "stupid people shouldn't breed" seems to be correlated to the degree which the rest of society is punished for the once-upon-a-time actions of stupid people. Stupid people aren't really a big problem if you're not using them to set the lowest common denominator by which you treat everyone.

I think a lot of older school Americans have a real justice boner and justice in their mind is often eye for an eye. At least this feels true about the older, right-leaning generation I know. Justice in the US, traditionally, seems a lot more punitive than rehabilitory. I think that has fizzled off in the more recent generation and some policy is already starting to reflect that, i.e. marijuana laws and releasing people for that crime early.

Source: Am American.

This is exactly what I worry about. Part of Liberty is actually using it. It's where the whole "home of the brave" thing comes in.

When people are by default free to do things... Yeah. You have to be willing to keep an eye out. And I do not ascribe to the school of thought that anything that creates a condition of "unsafety" should necessarily be controlled until it becomes an established regular thing that cannot be ignored. That's a road we already know ends up with no one having any room to do anything because you can dlways find someone who'll get their knickers in a twist about it.

The shocking part here is the video evidence of just not giving a damn, and not being genuinely "in the task" of being a responsible airman.

Did you not read the article you are commenting on?

The article you're commenting on.