A YouTube star has had his pilot’s licence revoked by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after it found he jumped out of a plane and deliberately allowed it to crash so he could record the incident.
Trevor Jacob, a former United States Olympic snowboarder and social media personality, triggered controversy after he uploaded a video titled “I crashed my plane” last December.
Citing an engine failure, Mr Jacob parachuted out of the small aircraft, and filmed it crashing into the foothills of the Los Padres National Forest in California.
In a letter dated 11 April, the FAA said he had violated the aviation agency’s rules and operated his single-engine plane in a “careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another”, The New York Times reported.
“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,” the FAA’s letter said.
“Your egregious and intentional actions on these dates indicate that you presently lack the degree of care, judgment and responsibility required of a certificate holder,” the agency added.
“During this flight, you opened the left side pilot door before you claimed the engine had failed,” the FAA said, adding that he made no effort to contact air traffic control on the emergency frequency.
The nearly 13-minute-long YouTube video, posted on Christmas eve, has over 1.8 million views so far.
Aviation experts and social media users had raised questions about whether the plane was crashed on purpose, prompting the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board to launch a joint investigation.
The video, which was filmed using GoPro cameras attached to different parts of the Taylorcraft BL65 single engine plane, shows the aircraft losing power mid-air.
“During the flight, I experienced an engine failure over some mountains. There was no safe space to land,” Mr Jacob alleged in the video.
“This is why I always fly with a parachute,” he added after the plane crashed, as he walked back to the plane wreckage.
The YouTuber had turned off comments on the video after users asked if he staged the crash.
Mr Jacob has yet to comment publicly on the FAA’s letter and did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent. In another video posted last week, he had said: “The truth of that situation will come out with time...and I’ll leave that at that.”
