A YouTuber and former Olympic snowboarder is officially being investigated by the US’s Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) over allegations that he faked a plane crash for content. If true, that’s deffo gonna require more than a notes app apology.
Back on Christmas Eve, the influencer in question – a guy called Trevor Jacob – uploaded a YouTube viddy called ‘I Crashed My Plane’. Classic clickbait header, right there.
The twelve minute long vid currently has more than 1.2 million views and the comments on it are turned off. In the vid, Jacob pilots a single-engine plane, with video shot on GoPros attached to the plane’s wings and tail.
According to the video, the plane seems to lose power and stops mid-air. Trevor Jacob then parachutes out of the plane and can be heard saying “oh, fuck” and “holy fuck, dude”.
If you are scared of heights (like me), I wouldn’t recommend watching the full vid, because the image of Jacob parachuting towards the mountains he was flying above made me feel incredibly nauseous.
In the video, he crashes into the wilderness in California.
“I’m in this ravine,” he said at one point, before appearing to fall over
“This is so fricking gnarly.”
According to Jacob’s video, there was no phone reception in the area of land he crashed into. At one point, he filmed himself drinking out of a river as night fell.
“It’s never felt so good to see and taste water,” he said, after noisily slurping the water.
He was then found by a farmer. In the video, Jacob can be heard telling the farmer that he always flies with a parachute and that he took the chance of parachuting out of the plane rather than trying to land the plane.
Since the vid was posted, though, a number of plane experts have posted videos debunking Jacob’s story. Lesson there: do NOT piss off the aviation girlies.
Look, who doesn’t love a bit of niche internet subculture beef?
According to publication The Drive, a number of the YouTubers reviewing Trevor Jacob’s video said that they couldn’t find any other content of him flying while wearing a parachute, which he claimed to always do.
However, the pub points out that there is a pic on Jacob’s insta where he’s seen wearing a parachute while flying.
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Others found it weird that Trevor Jacob didn’t seem to look for a possible place to land the plane, when there appeared to be potential landing spots in the background.
Look, I’m no plane expert, but people were also unloading on Jacob’s latest Insta post. It was of course, a pic of the crashed plane.
“Because the first item on any engine failure checklist is: 1. Open cockpit door immediately and prepare to jump out. 2. Under no circumstances attempt to restart engine,” one wrote, presumably sarcastically.
“If anyone knows anything about aviation – they’ll know how staged this was and how easy it would have been to glide to that riverbed,” wrote a user who according their Insta is a professional jump pilot.
“Hope you get the attention you wanted buddy.”
According to The Independent, the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board launched a joint investigation into the crash. Trevor Jacob didn’t respond to The Indie’s request for comment, and he hasn’t spoken publicly about the incident.
