There's really interesting observations made by the YouTube community - he had a fire extinguisher concealed under his pants right above his ankle.
Great that he got his pilots license revoked. He obviously is not mature enough.
Amongst all the other callouts, like why a parachute, why so many cameras strapped up, some timeline incongruities, some camera shot incongruities. His flight path made no sense. It was well executed enough to trick your regular view I'm sure, but it did not stand up to scrutiny, and you better believe the FAA was going to scrutinize.
Yup. He spent most of his time doing absolutely nothing, just maintaining back-pressure on the yoke and holding the aircraft in the stall.
I suppose at least he was lucky enough to pick an aircraft with docile stall characteristics. Somehow he does not strike me as the sort of person who could manage to recover from a wing-drop and induced spin.
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?
But if you're going to ban dangerous/stupid video someone has to make that determination. And you can be sure that there are a ton of activities that are dangerous/stupid in the eyes of some people (even understandably so). BASE jumping, wingsuits, really any kind of extreme sports, stuff with explosives, etc.
People were doing stupid stuff before YouTube existed. As long as it's legal (which this stunt was not) who cares? Teach your son why he shouldn't do that kind of stuff instead of turning to censorship.
I wouldn't - which is why I don't mind if it's taken down.
On the other hand, if content is encouraging people to do harmful or dangerous things then that becomes a different issue. I'm less uncomfortable with YouTube trying to stop Tide Pod Challenge videos which were basically encouraging such activity: The first two weeks of 2018 saw about as many poisoning reports from this as most entire years before then. [1]
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220412042754/https://time.com/...
Simply collect the ill-gotten gains from the perpetrator. The video seems like evidence anyway, should be part of the public record.
https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1242/son-of-sam-law...
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.
Like to get the engine running again, figure out if there's anywhere close enough to land/ditch safely, radio ATC, etcetera. And he didn't appear surprised or stressed out, he looked like he was expecting it.
Plus having the parachute on in advance, and so many cameras?
But this guy? This guy just pressed triangle and immediately pulled a full on GTA-V move.
For example, despondent people have historically tended to behave differently from those suffering dementia or lost hikers or plane crash survivors.
The text includes statistical data on where lost people have been found relative to the initial planning point for a search (e.g. last known point) - how far away, what type of terrain, whether they tend to go uphill or downhill etc.
One of the largest step-changes in lost person behavior came with the general adoption of the cellphone: many, many people now tend to go uphill than before - specifically in the hope of finding cellphone coverage.
Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.
Historically, it was pretty situational if you should stay put and make yourself safe and visible to rescuers or if you should try to self-rescue. But my sense is today the general impulse is to call for rescue--with the caveat that many of the places people are most likely to get in trouble are the least likely to have cell phone reception.
It’s kind of nuts, really.
Our whole time left in DV, we never found any other reliably strong signal.
I'm mildly amused that we have trained ourselves into anti-survival behaviors- head uphill where there is less water, more exposure to elements, etc. (of course, being uphill might make you more visible, but that's assuming anyone is coming anytime immediately soon)
I've seen a lot of near-accident videos and they all show the initiation of the accident sequence and allow you to step through the process the PIC went through to either _cause_ and/or _get out of_ the incident. This video had none of those qualities. Trim for best glide speed? Nope. Head on a swivel looking for suitable alternates? Nope. The performative display of pumping the yoke? Engine is out and the pilot is trying to do what? Precipitate an aerodynamic stall?
I can think of very few disciplines that are more contradictory than the juxtaposition of aviation with the "influencer"/social media spectrum. Hopefully the FAA revocation of his certificate paves the way for law enforcement to look into fraud and other issues.
If you're not one of Tony Stark's AIs, what might this mean?
IA seems to mean he is a flight instructor.
This was also something I just learned about the incident an hour ago, and in fact he has a fire extinguisher on both legs, which are relatively evident in his video:
- Bulge on his right calf when jumping out of the plane at 2m06s into the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbYszLNZxhM&t=126s
- You can then see the bottom of the fire extinguisher on his left leg lit up by the sun for a couple frames at 2m11s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbYszLNZxhM&t=131s
blushes thanks
You have an amazing brain just doesn't really tickle all the same physiological switches though.
If the op felt I was flirting with them then that's entirely their problem :)
"good eyes" or "well spotted" would be more idiomatic, I think.
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.
Though, de'd still probably get there before it spread to miles and miles...he just wouldn't have had much impact when he did even if it was only a few dozen yards in size.
So he might have got to it.
But on the other hand he's also an idiot.
Nevertheless he at least thought he might have to do this.
I wasted an inordinate amount of time analysing the whole thing myself, including but not limited to finding the location based on geographic features - and then testing in Flight Simulator.
I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one.
I'm disappointed he's not thrown in jail for reckless endangerment.
There was for a time a micro-industry of people taking flights to this location on Youtube -- it's one of the most fun examples of this that I've seen.
And yeah; really quickly people discovered that he genuinely had options.
There is a question I've not seen answered yet. Did the wallet guys know he was doing this in advance?
He also removed the ending, and both the beginning and ending were the pretext for the flight – bringing his friends ashes in a used sandwich bag to be scattered in the mountains, so could have instead been removed to reduce the cheese factor.
…suffice to say lots of people have gone through his video frame by frame to find weird stuff.
An extinguisher that small is basically useless except for very temporarily beating back the fire to get to something/someone.
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.
Even in an empty fuel tank the vapors are way to rich to ignite. You might get a good flash if you introduce air and ignition at the same time but odds are you won't get any sort of sustained fire.
Unlike cars, even old aviation engines have strict rules for inspection, and for replacement of parts after a certain number of hours, rather than when they wear out or fail. You could get away with circumventing these for a while, but it is simply not true that it is "very common" for "old ass prop planes" to have engine failures, comparably to old cars.
> It was also strongly speculated that he filled one of the fuel tanks with water...
I would be interested in seeing how strong the evidence behind this speculation is, but if it were the case, it would be yet further evidence of his incompetence, as water is no help, and sometimes a problem, in preventing, containing and extinguishing a gasoline fire.
1. It would be useful to fight fire at the wreckage if attempting a recovery of the go-pro footage from the plane
2. To limit a bush fire from spreading (and national park blowback) around the wreckage, although those tiny extinguishers would probably do diddly-squat if a bush fire actually started
Better to use the extinguishers as extra thrust for a wing suit.
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 skydiving equipment he wears is very bulky but steerable and allows for a safe landing. There also is a backup.
Actual emergency parachutes (e.g. as used by glider pilots) are much thinner, cannot be steered and only guarantee "survival" (expect a broken leg)
Really goes to show how shitty the "creator" economy is for the "creator"
He was speculating to accumulate.
This is a dangerous thought. There is already too much decision making of what is allowed on our social platform by the big corps.
YouTube should at best demonetize the video, and only if it does that consistently based on a public policy.
Don't you think it would be better to go through a system which has (at least a semblance of) due process, fairness, and transparency about the rules? Yes yes I know I know, "they're a private company they can do what they want". I'm not wondering what they can do, more flabbergasted about the apparent sudden and large support for corporations acting to censor and punish people like this.
Then it should be in their terms of service. In fact it probably is…
The solution would be for a court to take that money away at the same time as convicting him. And I think many courts would do exactly that.
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.
But remember that aside from a few narrow exceptions (e.g., CSAM), sharing videos of someone doing something illegal isn't itself illegal.
Since the service is 'free' and no money changes hands it's not as if they have to refund banned user etc.
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".
So did the Discovery channel. The only difference is that they had asked the FAA permission to do so.
This guy crashed a plane for profit without permission. This may have just been stupidity, not understanding the consequences. Loads of people also crash other vehicles for fun and profit, so why should YT distinguish between someone crashing a car vs a plane. Where should YT draw the line? They don't make the laws.
If you're pinning your argument on this, then fine. But it is a huge difference.
Honestly this whole idea that Youtube should willingly be a party to this sort of thing is a libertarian take too far for me, but then I'm British.
This is a bit of a silly way to look at it, I'm sorry to say.
What if they just remove the video on the balance of probability that it involved, in the FAA's judgement, a deliberate dangerous plane crash without permission?
This is not a challenging precedent. House-flipping is not smashing a plane into the ground without planning and without regard for safety, is it?
Regulations on performing archælogical excavations?
Food safety violations?
Alcohol production?
Blasphemy laws in any country Youtube might be accessed from?
Animal cruelty laws? (Are hamster wheels cruel?)
Religious laws on the consumption of cattle / pork?
Privacy laws in Germany? (Dashcams are heavily regulated there)
Is it legal to show a Nazi swastika everywhere? A non Nazi swastika? A communist symbol? What about an imperial Japanese ensign?
Is it legal to say the Armenian suffered a genocide, or to claim they didn't?
Is it legal to cast doubt on any one finding of the Nuremberg trials?
What about mentioning a crime committed by a living person more than 20 years go? (Hint: it may not be legal in some European countries. Which ones? You tell me.)
But please, make the libertarian Gish galloping stop.
And would "dangerous" include technically legal but dangerous actions like speaking up for gay rights in Yemen or criticizing cartels in Mexico? Or would they be more limited to the youtube wrong-think-corrections officer judging the video to demonstrate outright illegal actions like protesting Putin's special operation while in Russia, or publishing documents containing evidence of western war crimes?
I prefer to live in a world where people at least try to navigate grey areas.
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.
No, a responsible behaviour is for Youtobe to purposely leave him on the platform for everybody to see what he did and the comments below the video, but cut his revenue for this video due to ToS violations. I sure the lawyers who wrote the ToS thought about something like this.
Everyone is free to choose who they do business with. There are some protected categories but “people wantonly destroying airplanes for publicity and profit” is not one of them.
I don't get the obsession with removing dumb online stunts. I can understand calls for censoring violent crimes and even then you don't get to make this decision for other people, censoring unpleasant things doesn't make them go away.
But with dumb online posts the case just completely falls apart. "But he's going to benefit from this" ok so fucking what ? there's a whole class of people who do dumb, dangerous and harmful things for public approval and profit from it, they are called polliticans and celebrities. They routinely do unimaginabley stupid and outrageous things and profit from the publicity that comes with it. How is this any different, except that "online influencer" is a relatively new class of people unlike the other ones?
>There are some protected categories
Appealing to protected groups is the weakest argument you could ever make for "Businesses can censor whoever they like". Protected groups are arbitary and reflects lobbying and political considerations more than any moral truth. Why are some religious groups protected for instance? it's just a bunch of beliefs, they could be as wrong or as dumb as any other set of beliefs right ? they are not immutable characteristics of the people believing them. (not anymore than any other kind of beliefs)
My own personal opinion is that it's stupid to classify people as "Protected" or not, but rather any business that have reasonably-easy-to-find alternatives can do whatever the hell they like, refuse to serve customers based on skin color, gender, favorite programming language, you name it. As long as it's "easy" to find alternatives (by some objective standard the law defines, like "there's is a similar service within a 1-KM radius"), they can do whatever they like.
But for all other businesses who aren't so easy to replace, common sense morality says they should be EXTREMELY curtailed from censoring or denying *anyone* without a very good reason.
Alas, we don't live in my utopia and the laws of this time and place are extremely dumb and discriminating.
Youtube does not hold monopoly on communication or information.
> it's an action that you want to force on them by some mechanism of public rage
Lol. :) Public rage you say? Where is the rage? :)
> I don't get the obsession with removing dumb online stunts.
Let me help you with that: This stunt was done in order to get attention. You fuel it with attention and there will be more stunts. Either from this dude or others. You remove the attention and it dies out on its own.
I believe, and many others seems to agree this stunt was potentially dangerous and we should have less of these in the future. Removing the video is the way to achieve that, keeping the video up is youtube profiting from a potentially dangerous stunt.
> Appealing to protected groups is the weakest argument you could ever make for "Businesses can censor whoever they like".
Because it is not an argument for that.
What, pray tell, is that other service that has several hundred million of viewers and thousands of hours of video being uploaded every hour?
As soon as you tell me it's name, I'm going to concede that YouTube is not a monopoly.
>Where is the rage?
Are you implying you just call for censorship as a hobby without even feeling angry? that's even worse.
>You remove the attention and it dies out on its own
This is demonstrably false, the guy who made the video didn't have a trend to draw inspiration from, he thought up of a dumb idea completely on his own. Even IF (a very big if) your model of how social imitation works is reasonably accurate and taking down the video really prevents any further stunts of those type, other influencers will simply think up of new dumb stunts like this.
Let me stress, again, that the world is not a kindergarten and you are not it's caretaker. If people want to crash aircrafts to get internet points, that's completely an issue between them and the relevant authorities, those bureaucrats suck up an awful lot of tax money, let them work for it for once.
You don't get to decide for the hundreds of millions who watch YouTube what's acceptable and what's not. I and countless other people fund this shitty public record with the attention we give to countless 20-second ads, and I want every recorded moment to stay recorded, at least until they go out of business. You don't have the right to force me to respect what offends or worries you, don't worry about public safety, let everyone worry about their own.
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.
He probably will just be banned from flying for life, but will still have a much enlarged youtube audience and ad revenue that more than pays for the lost plane.
I highly doubt he'll spend even a day in prison.
However why conceal it? Most planes just have a place for them. That's suspicious. There were also loads of empty roads to land safely.
I agree this whole thing looks really staged. Jumping out with a selfie stick.. :X Such a waste of an airplane.