Trevor Jacob recorded himself parachuting out of a small plane after claiming to have engine trouble. Photo / @TrevorJacob YouTube
Trevor Jacob recorded himself parachuting out of a small plane after claiming to have engine trouble. Photo / @TrevorJacob YouTube
YouTuber Trevor Jacob couldn't have picked a better day to get into his small, single-engine plane and take a flight.
The Californian sun was shining, the sky was blue, and below, the rugged mountainside of the Los Padres National Forest offered the perfect backdrop for the apparent disaster that wouldsoon unfold.
Not long after takeoff from Lompoc City Airport in Santa Barbara, Jacob said: "Holy s***. I'm over the mountains and I have an engine out."
What followed next made spectacular footage: Jacob bailed out of the plane with a parachute on, leaving his aircraft to smash into the ground. He said he was "lucky to be alive".
But an investigation has found it was a deliberate stunt, that his actions put lives in danger, and that he should have his pilot licence revoked.
In a video titled I crashed my plane, uploaded last Christmas Eve and since seen by millions of people, cameras inside the cockpit, on the wing and on the tail capture the seemingly agitated pilot pulling up on the plane's steering column.
Soon the propeller stops spinning and the aircraft starts gliding.
Shortly after, Jacob readies his parachute and bails out of the left-side door, leaving the small 1940 Taylorcraft plane to fall to the ground and eventually smash into a mountainside.
Jacob's descent was filmed on a selfie stick he was holding before jumping out. The plane's impact was also caught on multiple cameras.
Jacob, a former Olympic snowboarder, who landed safely and was later rescued by local farmers, said: "This is why I always fly with a parachute".
But a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigation found that not was all as it seemed.
Safe landing could have been possible
They noted that the number of cameras set up, the fact that he was already wearing a parachute and that he opened the door mid-flight - before the claimed engine failure - all cast doubt on his claims that it was a genuine emergency.
They also found that he made no attempt to contact air traffic control, no attempt to restart the engine, and no attempt to find a safe place to land.
The FAA told Jacobs: "There were multiple areas within gliding range in which you could have made a safe landing."
After the crash, Jacob also "recovered and then disposed of the wreckage", the FAA said.
Revoking his private pilot's licence, they judged that he operated the aircraft in a "careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another".
The agency added: "You demonstrated a lack of care, judgment and responsibility by choosing to jump out of an aircraft solely so you could record the footage of the crash.
"Your egregious and intentional actions indicate that you lack the degree of care, judgment and responsibility required of a certificate holder."
The FAA cannot prosecute. It can only revoke and suspend certificates and issue fines.
Pilot community outrage
Even before the FAA released its findings, professional pilots poured scorn on Jacob's actions.
Commenting beneath the video on YouTube, Travis Taylor said: "As a 10,000hr aeroplane and helicopter pilot I think back to every emergency I ever had and never had the urge to 1) immediately jump out 2) make sure I had a selfie stick ready. This dude is a clown and should do jail time."
Another person added: "As a pilot community, we take hundreds of hours training to keep the aircraft safe and sound up in the air. This guy feels like it's the opposite to what I've ever done as a pilot.
"Every pilot knows that you don't just jump out of the aircraft immediately when you suffer a power loss even though you have a chute.
"It really bothers me that this dude crashes a plane for the YouTube algorithm game in an environment that should be kept professional at all times."
In a new video posted over the weekend - titled The FAA Took My Pilot's Licence - Jacob said: "I didn't think that just posting a video of an adventure gone south would ruffle so many feathers".
He did not say whether he accepted the findings of the FAA, but did hand in his licence.
Jacob appeared wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with "Always wear your parachute" in bold letters and then asked his followers to buy merchandise from his online shop to help pay his legal fees.
When asked if he would ever try to get his licence back and fly a plane again, he said: "The aviation community has been pretty tough on me, so I'm thinking about quitting altogether and giving up, just because I'm hated".
