A 30-year-old YouTuber, Trevor Jacob, has been jailed for six months in jail for deliberately crashing his plane for the sake of views.
He additionally provided false information to investigators in the United States.
In November 2021, Jacob departed from the Santa Barbara, California airport on a solo flight, equipped with cameras attached to his plane.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California disclosed 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 aircraft plunged into the Los Padres National Forest 35 minutes after take-off. Jacob trekked to the crash site and retrieved the footage.
Subsequently, on December 23, he uploaded the video titled “I crashed my airplane” on YouTube, which featured a promotion for a wallet company, according to prosecutors cited by BBC.
In December 2021, Jacob shared the video of the plane crash, which has since garnered millions of views. He portrayed it as an accident, exiting the plane with selfie sticks in hand and parachuting down to the ground.
Earlier this year, Jacob admitted guilt to a felony charge 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 said.
Prior to its removal, the video amassed nearly three million views.