US YouTuber Who Staged Plane Crash Jailed For Six Months

A 30-year-old YouTuber, Trevor Jacob, has been jailed for six months for deliberately crashing his plane for views.

He also lied to the United States investigators about it.

Jacob left the Santa Barbara, California airport on a solo flight with cameras mounted on his plane in November 2021.

The US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California revealed Jacob “did not intend to reach his destination, but instead planned to eject from his aircraft during the flight and video himself parachuting to the ground and his airplane as it descended and crashed.”

The plane crashed into the Los Padres National Forest 35 minutes after take-off. Jacob hiked to the site and recovered the footage.

He then uploaded the video entitled “I crashed my airplane” to YouTube on 23 December, which has a promotion for a wallet company, prosecutors said.

In December 2021, Jacob posted the video of the plane crash which has now been seen millions of times.

He indicated it was an accident as he ousted from the plane with selfie sticks in hand and parachuted down to land.

Earlier this year, Jacob pleaded guilty to one felony count of destruction and concealment with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation.

However, in his plea agreement, he said he filmed the video as part of a product sponsorship deal. He further said that “this experience has been so humbling” and described the sentence as the “right decision”.

“Most likely committed this offence to generate social media and news coverage for himself and to obtain financial gain.

“Nevertheless, this type of ‘daredevil’ conduct cannot be tolerated,” US federal prosecutors in California on Monday stated.

Before the video was removed, it recorded almost three million views.