Daniel Jacob intentionally crashed his aircraft just to get views on YouTube [WATCH]

Trevor Daniel Jacob

 

YouTuber is facing a 20-year prison sentence after maliciously wrecking his plane for online views and hiding the wreckage

According to a statement from federal prosecutors on Thursday, a 29-year-old YouTuber named Trevor Daniel Jacob has admitted guilt and faces up to 20 years in jail for purposefully crashing his plane while pretending it was an inevitable accident.

Jacob, a seasoned skydiver and pilot, consented to endorse a wallet in a YouTube video as part of a sponsorship deal, as stated in his plea agreement. On November 24, 2021, Jacob recorded himself in his aircraft as it departed Lompoc City Airport for Mammoth Lakes. Jacob, however, never planned to arrive at his destination. Instead, he intended to record himself jumping out of the plane as it crashed.

Prosecutors claimed that as part of his plot, Jacob put numerous video cameras on various airplane parts and was equipped with a parachute, video camera, and selfie stick. About 35 minutes after takeoff, he ejected from the aircraft above the Los Padres National Forest after equipping it with cameras from various perspectives.

Prosecutors claim that the plane's cameras filmed the moment it crashed into a forest's dry brush section. "Jacob hiked to the site of the wreck and recovered the data containing the video recording of his flight and the airplane crash after parachuting to the ground."

Jacob reported the plane crash to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) two days later. The agency initiated an investigation right once and informed Jacob that he was in charge of safeguarding the wreckage so that the agency could inspect it.

The FAA began its own crash investigation three days after the disaster. Prosecutors said that Jacob faked knowledge of the location of the plane wreckage during the investigations in order to carry out a complex scheme to conceal the wreckage.

Prosecutors claim that Jacob and a buddy traveled to the crash scene in a helicopter on December 10, 2021, and then took the debris to a property where he placed it onto a trailer hooked up to his pickup truck.

The debris was then unloaded in a hangar at Lompoc City Airport by Jacob. Prosecutors claimed that he then divided and destroyed the debris before putting its pieces in garbage cans at the airport over the course of a few days.

According to the plea agreement, he acknowledged that he took these actions to obstruct the federal investigation into the jet crash. In April 2022, the Federal Aviation Administration took away Jacob's pilot's license.

The video, which has received over 2.9 million views so far, is still accessible on YouTube and has Jacob continuously cursing while acting as though his engine has failed and that he must ditch the plane.

According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California, Jacob entered a guilty plea to one count of concealment and deception with the purpose to impede a federal investigation.

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