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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

Critically, he is not going to jail for intentionally crashing the plane. He is being jailed "for obstructing a federal investigation by deliberately destroying the wreckage of an airplane."

Had he cooperated, it's plausible to see him getting away with a license revocation and fine. Instead he did this:

"In the weeks following the plane crash, Jacob lied to investigators that he did not know the wreckage’s location. In fact, on December 10, 2021, Jacob and a friend flew by helicopter to the wreckage site. There, Jacob used straps to secure the wreckage, which the helicopter lifted and carried to Rancho Sisquoc in Santa Barbara County, where it was loaded onto a trailer attached to Jacob’s pickup truck.

Jacob drove the wreckage to Lompoc City Airport and unloaded it in a hangar. He then cut up and destroyed the airplane wreckage and, over the course of a few days, deposited the detached parts of the wrecked airplane into trash bins at the airport and elsewhere, which was done with the intent to obstruct federal authorities from investigating the November 24 plane crash."

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> Had he cooperated, it's plausible to see him getting away with a license revocation and fine.

Reminder of the quotation from Howard Baker (R-TN): “It is almost always the cover-up rather than the event that causes trouble.”

Though some would disagree:

> There's this old line the wise folks in Washington have that 'it's not the crime, but the cover-up.'

> But only fools believe that. It's always about the crime. The whole point of the cover-up is that a full revelation of the underlying crime is not survivable. Let me repeat that, the whole point of the cover-up is a recognition that a full revelation of the underlying bad act is not survivable. Indeed, the cover-ups are usually successful. And that's why they're tried so often. Just look at this administration [in 2007]. They're the ultimate example of this truth.

* https://web.archive.org/web/20071026022311/https://talkingpo...

> the whole point of the cover-up is a recognition that a full revelation of the underlying bad act is not survivable

There are numerous counter-examples to this claim. In many cases, it's obvious because the cover-up is of a civil infraction.

I feel like the Toupee Fallacy is lurking around in this conversation. We know how many cover-ups are successful, and the ones we know about are nearly universally unsuccessful.

Not disagreeing. Just pushing back on cover-ups being rational. In many cases, the cover-up wasn't worth it. "Full revelation of the underlying bad act" would have been utterly survivable, even taking into account the odds of getting away with no consequence.

Yeah, my feel is that the underlying act was often enough survivable, but it didn't feel like it at the time. A cover-up attempt in state of panic is opposite of rational (except maybe in terms of calming your own nerves).

And it takes a steely set of nerves to calmly wait for the dice to finish rolling.

Panic tends to bias towards action.

Depends on the person. Panic has always biased me towards inaction: this is helpful in urgent circumstances (where waiting and thinking for a few minutes feels really bad, but is usually the right move unless someone's bleeding to death), but harmful in non-urgent circumstances (where there's only a few minutes' worth of thoughts to think about the situation, so waiting and thinking for a few months is completely counterproductive).

Even in cases where the perpetrator believes that the underlying act is survivable, they'd probably still rather not get caught at all.

Guess some people like to play the odds. Rather than take 50% damage, they choose to gamble between 0% damage (cover up successful) and 100% damage (cover up failed and isn’t survivable) - they are equivalent in terms of expected value.

But they're not necessarily equivalent. If option a (0% damage) is equiprobable with option b (100% damage), then yeah, the expectation value is 50% damage. But if option b is 4 times more likely than option a, then the expectation value is 80% (1/5 *0 + 4/5*100 = 80). It's that misapprehension of the probabilities that is the error of the person failing to coverup a crime.

Just because there are only two possible outcomes doesn't mean that they are equiprobable. Not all coin tosses use a "fair" coin.

There are three outcomes in this hypothetical: don’t bother with the cover up (50% damage); successful cover up (0% damage); and failed cover up (100% damage). So the calculation is a bit more complicated.

"don't bother with the cover up" doesn't contribute to the probabilistic model. If I flip a coin, it can't come up "I didn't flip the coin".

Tangentially relevant, I have found that when people crash into my parked car, they universally attempt to cover up, and flee the scene. Inevitably they are on camera, and they end up paying for damage. This has happened multiple times. However, there is no extra punishment adminstered for the fleeing and the cover up. So (at least in Australia) you are universally incentivsed to try and coverup a vehicle hit and run, than you are to leave details. Sad.

You're right. To expand: don't bother is the null. Deciding to cover-up leads to one of two outcomes, the good one (you get away) and the bad (you get boned). You don't know which of those outcomes you'll get.

The percentages the comment you're responding to provides aren't probabilities, but damage fractions; 50% isn't a 50/50 likelihood, but 50% damage of the 100% case.

If your outcome is defined on a continuum, then the expectation value is the sum of product of (probability of some event times the outcome value of that event).

Fair coin flips have 50/50 odds. If we say that you get $100 if it comes up heads, and $0 if it comes up tails, then the expectation value for the money you'd have afterwards is $50=0.5*$100 + 0.5*$0. If it was an unfair coin with 30% odds of coming up heads, then your expectation value is $30= 0.3*$100 + 0.7*$0. And so on. The fact that the outcomes are dollars or damage percentages is irrelevant to the calculation.

The three outcomes are:

* Successful cover up (0% damage).

* Failed cover up (100% damage).

* Don't bother (100% damage).

So if doing nothing and failing to cover up lead to the same result, you might as well give a shot at successfully covering up. Whatcha got to lose?

It is assumed not bothering is 100% damage because the screw up is apparently bad enough to warrant attempting a cover up.

Except that in a lot of cases, a failed coverup incurs a few more felonies, so "don't bother" is closer to like 75%, while "failed cover up" is definitely 100%.

In terms of risk analysis, rationally considering a coverup is in the same ballpark as rationally considering shorting a stock, in the sense that making the wrong call can cost a whole bunch more.

I'd say failed cover up is 100% damage, but "don't bother" is under 100%. A failed cover up is always worse than the initial screw up. E.g. this exact case, which went from civil penalties (loss of pilot's license) to criminal (jail time) AND civil penalties due to the failed cover up.

In the UK it’s a crime to “flee the scene of an accident”, even if that accident was a minor scratch on a stationery vehicle.

It is the same in many other European countries. But I guess in case of minor scratches those laws belong to the most frequently broken ones... ;)

> We know how many cover-ups are successful

Did you mean "we don't know"?

https://fairing.co/assets/images/blog/known-unknowns-matrix-...

Simple. Look at what was a conspiracy theory in the 80’s and turned into a “yeah we did that, so what” in the 2000’s re: the government?

The Dalai Lama literally pulled down a six figure paycheck from the CIA, for example. The government was, is, and will continue to spy on you.

The difference is that if something is successfully covered up for 10-20-30 years, by the time the public finds out about it nobody really cares.

> There are numerous counter-examples to this claim. In many cases, it's obvious because the cover-up is of a civil infraction.

Indeed, people go out of the frying pan and into the fire all the time.

I think the kernel of truth in the parent post is that the subjects might genuinely believe that the revelation of the original "crime" alone would be impossible to recover from, so they might as well go all in on trying to cover it up.

So, the "marginal cost" of additional penalties from a failed coverup just doesn't seem all that high given the potential upside of a successful coverup.

I probably watch too much popular media, but I am only thinking of bigger crimes where it seems like the rational choice is to attempt a coverup.

Murder? Check. Stealing a Snicker's bar? Probably just leave the evidence in place.

What is the threshold where you have to make the call? White-collar crimes feel the only place where you could make the argument that further action on the scene is likely to leave behind more evidence.

>White-collar crimes feel the only place where you could make the argument that further action on the scene is likely to leave behind more evidence.

Nixon tapes, Iran Contra paper shredding, Enron paper shredding (we got Sarbanes Oxley out of that.) There are plenty of places where further action likely prevented far far worse things.

I think white collar crime is harder now, as evidenced by recent political scandals (fucking up your secure messaging app, bungling PDF's). I dont know of any one who has the technical acumen to fully cover their tracks.

Probably including Watergate which I believe was the inspiration for that quote. The underlying act was probably survivable. The coverup was not.

Nixon didn't know that the evidence tying him to the Chennault Affair was weak. If it was weak, he could play the "I didn't know" card. If it was strong, he would have had to play the much worse "It wasn't illegal" card. These are mutually exclusive, so conducting a criminal operation to get a peak at the evidence was a rational gamble. It didn't pay off, but no, just chilling was not a good option and no, the underlying act was not the lesser evil.

It’s worth mentioning that the Watergate coverup eventually failed because of a plane crash and the events set in motion due to it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Air_Lines_Flight_553

Woodward and Bernstein were already investigating (for many months prior to the crash), and Nixon's later coverups (after March 1973) don't seem to be connected to the crash in any way.

Perhaps if the crash hadn't happened, the people/money on board could have ensured McCord (and the other plumbers) would have stayed quiet instead of telling Judge Sirica that it was a White House operation. Without some significant evidence of intent for the passengers, though, this is a pretty soft argument.

I guess. WaPo thinks it was pretty significant:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/12/08/dorothy-hu...

> What’s clear, though, is the influence the crash had on the arc of the Watergate scandal. It was a crucial turning point. Howard Hunt, worried his children would be orphans if he spent years in prison, asked his lawyer to meet with Colson and request a pardon from Nixon after a year of incarceration if Hunt would plead guilty and avoid trial.

> Colson spoke with Nixon, as recorded in White House tapes. Nixon agreed to the clemency proposal.

> Four other Watergate defendants, Cuban Americans from Miami whom Howard Hunt had brought to the burglary operation, took this as a cue that they’d be pardoned, too, and also pleaded guilty.

Your link says that’s a conspiracy theory?

Isn’t the Martha Stewart insider trading story one of these counter examples?

Martha Stewart was never convicted for insider trading. This is a common mistake people make.

She was found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct, of obstruction of an agency proceeding, and of making false statements.

Had she said she made the trade(s) on the basis of a tip, would that have been the better outcome? Was keeping her mouth shut an option?

Well, part of it is that the systems are generally designed with the idea that covering up or otherwise trying to fight the system is likely to happen when the system is likely to inflict a negative outcome on someone. So the obvious course is the make obstructing the system in this treated as badly or worse than the actual thing being covered up or obstructed. You see this in the judicial system all the time, where if you're found to be hiding or tampering with evidence, the court can just assume the worst possible version of whatever such evidence could have been, or just outright award a default verdict, as Alex Jones has been finding out recently.

Survivorship bias...

When the coverup works, we don't hear about it.

Often we know about the coverup, but we don't know what was covered up. "Lost" documents are quite common in politics.

And we will never know if it was worth it.

>To say that there's a scandal because the cover-up didn't work is no more than a dingbat truism

This nails it quite succinctly, IMO.

I think you're misinterpreting it a bit. Yes, the covered-up thing is usually bad enough that there's an incentive to conceal it, but it's the efforts at concealment that often end up drawing attention to the perpetrator. Absent those, many crimes would either not be investigated so thoroughly or talked down to less significance with a 'so what' or 'I didn't think it was illegal/a big deal' response (this happens a lot in politics nowadays). Covering up some incriminating action implicitly admits that the action was known to be bad, making it impossible to downplay after discovery.

The problem with cover ups is that they are creating more data points and evidence to find/arrest/prosecute you.

They also demonstrate intent that was potentially unproveable before the attempt to cover up. It's pretty hard to say "oh whoops, was that illegal?" if you've gone to significant lengths to hide it from law enforcement.

In practice, there are examples both for and against the proposition that the cover-up is worse than the crime. Having said that, the argument presented here against the proposition is being justified with a fallacy: numerous cases have shown that cover-ups are attempted even when a full revelation of the underlying crime is survivable (either literally or metaphorically.) In at least some and perhaps many cases, attempting a cover-up may be the statistically-justifiable rational choice even if its failure will bring worse consequences than the infraction being covered up.

this has some faulty reasoning involved as well.

There are the following conditions:

1. individual determines correctly the crime is not survivable and does cover up that fails and you have both crime and cover up.

2. individual determines correctly the crime is not survivable and does cover up with succeeds in covering up crime sufficiently but then the individual gets damage from cover up, since there is a strong suspicion the cover up was of crime the cover up punishment is nearly as bad as crime.

... variations of above until

X1. individual determines incorrectly the crime is not survivable when it was, and does cover up and suffers more from cover up than they would from crime.

These things are of course also hampered by what one hopes for - if you think you will be damaged by crime but not as much by cover up if cover up fails you may still attempt cover up because successful cover up means no damage.

3. Individual does cover up, which gets discovered along with a crime, and the individual gets punished for both the cover-up and the crime that was discovered. The cover-up was successful. It hid a much more egregious crime that nobody ever learned about.

right there are a number of different variations that I didn't add in because I didn't have time - just wanted to show there is more than just "it's not the crime it's the coverup" or "no it's the crime!" going on here.

I don't think there's cold rational thought that goes into most coverups, it's more like ....

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rN97tqSwI44

Filming the crime and then covering it up isn't exactly going to work in your favour.

Note, however, that this doesn't mean that he would have gotten away with it if he'd cooperated. It means that the federal prosecutor decided that the act of obstruction would be easier to prove, since the intentional nature of those acts is much more self-evident.

> [...]this doesn't mean that he would have gotten away with it if he'd cooperated[...]

If he'd stuck to the story that he just had an engine mishap would they have been able to prove that it was intentional?

They'd almost certainly have revoked his license to ever fly again, but filming everything you're doing isn't illegal.

Nor is wearing a parachute because you know you're a crappy pilot that'll bail out at the first sign of trouble.

General Aviation airplanes require an annual inspection (from an IA A&P mechanic -- that's airframe & powerplant with inspection authorization). My understanding is that the plane was out of annual (ie, bought as parts) and he fixed it up enough to fly. There are strict limits on what repairs you can do yourself without involving a licensed A&P mechanic. FAA actually does ramp checks on occasion to verify that your bug smasher has up to date registration and annual inspection. Regardless of how the flight ended, the flight shouldn't have happened in the first place and his PPL could be revoked for that alone.

> There are strict limits on what repairs you can do yourself without involving a licensed A&P mechanic.

Sure, you're right that this plane was clearly violating a myriad of maintenance violations. But maintenance violations aren't going to get you thrown in jail. They might get your license taken away and would definitely yield some fines, but not thrown in jail.

I am assuming of course this is on a personal GA plane (like the youtuber was using to fly himself). Skipping maintenance and/or doing it himself would have gotten him a few relatively small fines. He probably wouldn't have lost his license and certainly wouldn't have been thrown in jail for these.

Of course the rules would change significantly if this was a charter plane like Part 135, then things are more serious. He would have lost his license then, and maybe gotten some jailtime. Skipping or fraudulent maintenance on a part 121 (scheduled commercial airlines like United or Delta) would certainly yield jailtime.

Edit: this is wrong as pointed out below.

FAA doesn’t mess around with the maintenance regulations. If I remember correctly the A&P knowledge test requirement was to answer 99% of questions correctly, compared to something like 75% for a PPL (I might be way off but there was a large difference).

You're way off. Comically so. A&P passing grade is more like 70%. It's not a comparable figure to PPL ground school.

You’re right, but I’m wondering where my confusion comes from. I’m absolutely positive something required a much higher %. Maybe a different license or regs changed in the last decade or so?

I thought I remembered something like this— maybe it's a higher question count or lower time limit for e.g. commercial?

The FAA testing matrix seems to suggest all are 70% as of now[0]

[0] https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/2022-09/testing_matr...

Getting strong Mandela Effect vibes now… can’t find anything other than 70%, now or a decade ago. But I’m virtually certain I didn’t make something like this up :)

Are you thinking of ATPL (ATP in America I believe)?

Yes, he’ll certainly face punishment. But I don’t think he’ll go to prison (or perhaps a suspended sentence) if he cooperated.

Nice reply. For other readers, I needed to Google these terms:

IA: Inspection Authorized

A&P: Airframe & Powerplant

> If he'd stuck to the story that he just had an engine mishap would they have been able to prove that it was intentional?

In a normal setting, probably not. General-aviation aircraft don't have flight recorders. Helpfully for the investigators, however, this numpty decked his plane out in cameras. And then posted the video online. After he'd executed the cover-up.

It was pretty blatantly obvious from just the video.

The engine didn't just stop producing power, that would leave typically the propeller spinning, windmilling in the air. (unless the engine seized, but he was faking fuel starvation)

He put a bunch of effort into making sure the propeller actually stopped spinning, I think he had to actually reduce speed; Just so that your average YouTube viewer could clearly see the engine had stopped.

My understanding reading the original incident report, to my recollection, was that there was enough there that random grossly negligent youtuber trying to get clicks for an ad + a dozen cameras + parachute + not following safety protocol + not giving enough time of trying to restart before immediately bailing meant the beyond reasonable doubt conclusion would almost certainly be that this was premeditated.

Probably, because he was stupid enough to record a video with cameras in the plane. But there’s plenty of ways to achieve it which could pass as accidental:

Accidentally lean mixture (e.g., grab the wrong control). Set to use an empty fuel tank. Set the fuel valve to off or in between settings. With some preparation, destroy a spark plug or two, only enable those spark plugs in the air - extreme misfires will be obvious on video.

There are plenty of pilots who wear chutes (and there are special chutes which basically replace your seat) but he also had a fire extinguisher strapped to his leg which is not a normal occurrence.

Applying a bit of abduction, I see two narratives that track:

1. Some other illicit activity was going on in or around that plane.

2. The pilot thought he could make the whole mess go away by erasing physical evidence of the crash; his reasoning might be along the lines of "no evidence, no feds".

I find both equally credible. I'm stumped.

Never overestimate the intelligence of someone willing to jump out of a moving plane for clicks and views.

Never underestimate the propensity of a criminal to engage in multiple crimes.

I maintain it could go either way.

>If he'd stuck to the story that he just had an engine mishap would they have been able to prove that it was intentional?

Isn't that what the black box is for?

The tech in that airplane is much closer to a 1935 tractor than it is to even a 1985 passenger car (which also didn’t have anything like a black box).

It's very unlikely that a private aircraft this small would have a 'black box' (either of the cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder variety). That said, the pilot in this case had incriminating evidence on board due to his own recording devices.

Yes, because nothing in the plane caused a loss of power.

And even if it did, he made no effort to resolve the issue.

Is there a law that says you can't intentionally crash a plane? Honest question. There isn't a law that prevents you from intentionally crashing other vehicles. Just around property damage and endangering other people.

> There isn't a law that prevents you from intentionally crashing other vehicles. Just around property damage and endangering other people.

You can probably do whatever you want with your private vehicle on your private land. But on public roads you need a license to operate, and you must operate the vehicle in certain prescribed ways.

Similarly you can probably do whatever you want with your private air vehicle while it sits on your private land, but when you are operating in public air space then you must operate in the ways prescribed by your pilot license.

> can probably do whatever you want with your private vehicle on your private land

Sort of.

Own plane, own land and a filed flight path should satisfy the FAA's requirements, though you may also need to take active measures to ensure your private land is clear of things that could be harmed. After that, there is the environmental component. Our influencer here not only inundated the crash site with leaded avgas, but likely also sprinkled it all the way to the hangar. Given the track record of decision making, I have no hope he disposed of the parts properly, either.

> Own plane, own land and a filed flight path should satisfy the FAA's requirements, though you may also need to take active measures to ensure your private land is clear of things that could be harmed.

If he had a private air field/airport and "landed" (crashed) the plane on his air field, then that could be argued, but there's still the fact that he bailed out of the airplane and left it in an uncontrolled state, in which case there's probably some kind of 'reckless' charge that could be thrown at him.

Otoh people crash stuff on the reg (crash tests, stunts, …) and an unoccupied plane should be quite predictable. If you can demonstrate that you secured the area and it is large enough there is low-to-no chances of the plane getting out from bailout conditions everyone woukd likely be satisfied.

> you can demonstrate that you secured the area and it is large enough there is low-to-no chances of the plane getting out from bailout conditions

You are probably underestimating how wast that area must be to do that.

pray tell how can I be under-estimating when I am not estimating anything in the first place.

> Given the track record of decision making, I have no hope he disposed of the parts properly, either.

Your instincts are correct:

> Jacob drove the wreckage to Lompoc City Airport and unloaded it in a hangar. He then cut up and destroyed the airplane wreckage and, over the course of a few days, deposited the detached parts of the wrecked airplane into trash bins at the airport and elsewhere

> law that says you can't intentionally crash a plane?

No. We do crash tests from time to time [1]. But at a minimum, you must control--not even just own--the terrain you're crashing into. (It's also not solely a Part 91/FAA matter. The EPA, for example, would also want to have a say.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Boeing_727_crash_experime...

The Wiki page says:

    The site in Mexico was chosen because authorities in the United States would not allow the test to take place.

When you wrote "we", did you mean the United States?

What does "control" mean, technically?

I have an intuitive sense of what you're pointing at with the Boeing 727 crash experiment, but how does the law phrase it?

> What does "control" mean, technically?

"The power to govern, manage, direct, or oversee something" [1]. So if I own/possess acres of unfenced grasslands, I'd need to put up fences or people to monitor the property or at the very least crash site's borders.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/control

It's a more specific definition in aviation -- think air traffic control. You need to actively make sure that there won't be any other flights near where you're intending to crash your plane which is tricky if you just bail at altitude and let it sail into terrain for YouTube.

If you want to crash a plane, you'd likely have to apply for/receive temporary flight restrictions over the area where you want to crash it so that ATC can ensure everyone else stays clear.

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/foa_html...

> you'd likely have to apply for/receive temporary flight restrictions over the area where you want to crash it so that ATC can ensure everyone else stays clear

Correct. I was simply talking about control of the land underneath. Owning and controlling the land doesn't mean you have any rights to its airspace.

Is there a scenario where intentionally crashing a vehicle on property that you do not have permission to crash a vehicle on isn't reckless endangerment/reckless driving? Except maybe steering away from the oncoming bus into the jersey barrier or something?

> Is there a scenario where intentionally crashing a vehicle on property that you do not have permission to crash a vehicle on isn't reckless endangerment/reckless driving?

Arguably whenever you could expect that not crashing the vehicle would lead to a worse outcome. In the plane example, this might be true if you expect to loose control of the plane at some point (due to mechanical failure or force) and a controlled crash is the best option to avoid (possibly) impacting a more populated area. But I agree that this is a rare scenario.

I think implied here is also that putting yourself in that dangerous situation on purpose negates whatever goodwill claim you have to self-preservation. Or, at least, introduces more reckless endangerment/driving for which you are culpable.

I know there was at least one remote-controlled airliner intentionally crashed in the desert filled with crash dummies and stuff, though that was in an active partnership with the FAA

So far, all of us are just guessing, so here's my guess:

What Trevor did would be considered an "aerobatic flight" [1]

"aerobatic flight means an intentional maneuver involving an abrupt change in an aircraft's attitude, an abnormal attitude, or abnormal acceleration, not necessary for normal flight."

He may have been technically legal on the FAA side, but reckless dumping of hazardous materials in the desert is probably an actual charge they could have nailed him on. Perhaps "operating a vehicle off an approved trail" type of charge, or some kind of wildlife violation / fire hazard are also what I would guess. Perhaps running afoul of some kind of parachuting laws as well, maybe having to file for that so other aviators know about it.

Someone below mentioned filing a flight plan, which has nothing to do with anything. Flight plans are to aid in search-and-rescue if you dont show up.

[1] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F...

It probably falls under Careless or reckless[1] at the very least 14 CFR 91.13.

EDIT: Looks like user JumpCrisscross beat me to it.

1: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F...

> There isn't a law that prevents you from intentionally crashing other vehicles. Just around property damage and endangering other people.

Those two sentences don't make any sense next to each other. There's no way to intentionally crash your vehicle that doesn't include several other things for which their are specific laws for. One can't intentionally crash a car in the same way that you can intentionally swing a bat in your backyard without hitting anything.

Edit: Also, for what it's worth, it wasn't even his plane.

> One can't intentionally crash a car in the same way that you can intentionally swing a bat in your backyard without hitting anything

What exactly do you mean here? I've witnessed plenty of vehicle damage done on private ranchland from various obstacles, and in some cases, other family/friends' vehicles. If you wanted to drive your vehicle into a big rock on your own land, what exactly stops you?

Such a scenario isn't really relevant here, is it?

And you can't fly an airplane on your land because you don't own the air. He crashed a plane that wasn't his on land that wasn't his.

I'm not the one who contrived the scenario, I'm just asking what you meant when you contrived it, because your assertion, on its face, seems to be contrary to reality. In general, you can indeed crash your car into your stuff on your land all you want.

Did you mean to say that one can't intentionally smash a bat or a car into /other/ people's stuff without breaking a law? Because that seems pretty obvious.

Amazingly childish actions with adult scale, I'm blown away.

To chop it and dispose in local garbage... yikes.

Stuff like this makes me question things. I have a day job and this idiot has access to a helicopter and a spare plane to crash

Sounds a lot like parents' money no?

Perhaps, I know nothing about this.. but it does sound like a spoiled/sheltered kid.

In a more grand sense, this feels like a good example of our absurdity/excess. I'm not sure this would have happened if "influencers" hadn't become what they are

What prior evidence do we have of government honoring such "if you were honest we'd be easier on you" crap?

Zero incentive to trust such a statement. It's backed by nothing.

Plenty of evidence. Search keywords are "sentence", "reduced" and "cooperating".

Not sure about the veracity of this site, but it includes the law article number so you can verify it yourself: https://www.gordondefense.com/federal-crimes/federal-crimina...

> Federal Safety Valve (Title 18 United States Code Section 3553(e), United States Sentencing Commission §§ 5C1.2 and §2D1.1(b)(17))

> A person may be able to cooperate in order to receive relief under the “Safety Valve” provision of 18 U.S.C. 3553(e), USSG sections 5C1.2 and §2D1.1(b)(17). The safety valve is a particular area of importance as it is a way to receive reductions below mandatory minimum sentences

I don't think you understand where I'm coming from. Those statutes and documents aren't trustable.

I’m not sure it’s that they’d go easy on you, I think it’s more that they would go extra hard as a deterrent when they catch you trying to cover things up.

Wow, that's a lot of expensive trouble to go through to cover up. I wonder what the penalties would be otherwise - I'm sure there is some kind of code it broke but it's not obviously illegal. It's like me crashing my car on purpose.

> sure there is some kind of code it broke but it's not obviously illegal

It's very illegal. Part 91 § 91.13 careless or reckless operation [1] and § 91.15 dropping objects [2]. (I'm studying for my pilot's license.)

Also, until SCOTUS rules otherwise, agency rules carry the strength of statute.

[1] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/section-91.13

[2] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/section-91.15

Sure, but is it a felony-20-years-in-a-FPITA-prison illegal, or a giant-fine-and-revocation-of-pilot-license illegal? :-)

> is it a felony-20-years-in-a-FPITA-prison illegal, or a giant-fine-and-revocation-of-pilot-license illegal

Probably the latter unless someone gets hurt. (Agree with you that this was a dumb cover-up. Particularly when he seems to have done the cover up before posting the video?)

When does it become a cover-up vs "oopsie, didn't know"?

If he had dismantled the plane before the FAA knew about the crash, would that still qualify as destroying evidence?

Chopping up the plane and distributing the pieces in assorted different regular trash bins over time sounds like mens rea to me

As far as I understand in the aviation world the expectation is that you tell the FAA after any incident, nevermind crash, and presumably wait for their guidance on the wreck.

Some forms of reckless driving are considered felonies and can land you in prison, I feel like it would or should be worse with an airplane.

> FPITA-prison

Rape isn't funny. You might want to consider not using that slang term.

I'm pretty sure it is legal in the United States to buy a car and drive it uninsured on your own private property... and drive it into a brick wall at high speed. There is a YouTuber who is basically doing this now: Buying expensive cars and wrecking them on his private land. (I forget his name, but US-based guy. One video was him wrecking a highly customized Mercedes G Wagon.)

If you google the search terms "talladega big one" you will see a great variety of uninsured, expensive cars being driven on private property and aggressively junked ten or twenty at a time. This is most certainly not illegal without additional bad conduct.

Okay but in the US cars are generally above the law in many ways

Whistlindiesel

How can you think that this isn't obviously illegal lmao.

What a weirdo psycho, omg, it's like he's chopping up a body. Why didn't he just leave the wreckage there? Surely everything would have been far better if he had done that. Guilt and fear makes people do insane things, this is today's reminder.

Was the federal investigation already underway before he enacted his plan to cover it up? Or does it not matter. When does an investigation formally start? When they heard about the fake crash like everyone else did when it went viral on youtube?

It doesn't matter. As a licensed pilot he had a duty to report the incident. You don't get to pick whether it's "worth" investigating, the agency gets to decide based on your mandatory reporting.

Aircraft crashes may operate under different rules?

Is there any reason to believe that there will be a future trial in which he gets in trouble for purposefully crashing the plane as well?

Super curious how they even found out. Did he confess? Anyone got the info?

> Super curious how they even found out.

Found out what exactly?

> Did he confess?

He posted a video on youtube, the rest of it is just standard investigation.

That takes a lot of cash and a lot of stupid.

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