Unbelievable: YouTuber Sentenced to Prison for Deliberately Crashing Plane

A jail term of six months was handed down on Monday to a YouTuber who deliberately crashed his airplane and then proceeded to destroy the evidence. Trevor Jacob, 30, entered a guilty plea in June for obstructing a federal investigation by concealing and destroying evidence. Prosecutors asserted that Jacob committed the offense to gain attention on social media and news outlets, as well as to make a profit. Jacob is an extreme sports athlete who represented the U.S. at the 2014 Winter Olympics. After launching a YouTube channel, he uploaded a video titled, “I Crashed My Airplane” on Dec. 23, 2021. The flight occurred on Nov. 24, 2021, with Jacob claiming that he intended to scatter his friend’s ashes while paragliding. However, federal investigators discovered that Jacob had no intention of reaching Mammoth Lakes, Calif., his supposed destination, when he took off from Lompoc City Airport in Santa Barbara County. While in midair, Jacob jumped out of the plane and parachuted into bushes in Los Padres National Forest. The plane, which was fully operational, went on without him and crashed into the forest. Two days after the short-lived flight, Jacob informed the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board, both of which launched investigations. Despite being instructed by the feds to locate the plane and preserve the wreckage, Jacob claimed he did not know the plane’s whereabouts. Instead, he used a helicopter to remove the wreckage and later transported it to an airport hangar, where he dismantled the evidence, according to the Justice Department. Jacob posted the video a few days after destroying the plane, initially denying the scheme before ultimately pleading guilty. While the video was eventually removed from YouTube, copies of it were still present on the site as of Monday.