TREVOR Daniel Jacob, a 30-year-old YouTuber, and an experienced skydiver and pilot, was sentenced to six months in prison.
He admitted in June that he intentionally crashed his plane to capture that moment in a video in November 2021, as said by the federal prosecutors in California in a news release.
The video, titled ‘ crashed my airplane’ appeared in December 2021, and garnered millions of views.
The video appeared to show Jacob’s plane having an engine failure over the Los Padres National Forest in Santa Barbara County.
Jacob pleaded guilty with one felony count of destruction and concealment with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation.
According to the federal prosecutors in the Central District of California, Jacob lied to the federal investigators about not knowing the crash site, and that the also lied to a federal aviation administration safety inspectors.
Furthermore, according to prosecutors, Jacob was told days after the crash to preserve the site and tell the National Transportation Safety Board about it.
However, Jacob instead found the crash site and on December 10, 2021 he used a helicopter to lift the wreckage out of the area.
And little by little, Jacob dismantled and disposed of the wreckage in an attempt to thwart the federal investigation.
“[Trevor Daniel Jacob] 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,” according to US Federal Prosecutors.
Meanwhile, in a letter to the judge, Jacob wrote that he was sincerely sorry and that he had suffered a lot of consequences for the offence he committed.
