YouTuber fakes plane crash to go viral

On 24 December, YouTuber and former snowboarder Trevor Jacob uploaded the video “I Crashed My Plane” to his YouTube channel. Since then, and in just four months, the file has racked up more than two million views.

An overwhelming story showing footage of a man leaving his private plane to crash into a hillside in California. “I’m over the mountains and… I’ve got the engine off,” the former Olympian says in the video, moments before he jumps out of the cockpit with a parachute and records himself with a selfie stick. After several minutes, the wreckage of the plane appears and, after hours of walking, he manages to be rescued by a group of farmers.

What could be a tragic accident with a miraculous ending is nothing more than a super-production dreamed up by the content creator himself. The aim? To go viral. Following an official investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the results suggest that Jacob strategically planned the situation.

“You demonstrated a lack of care, judgement and responsibility by claiming to jump out of an aircraft solely so that you could record footage of the accident,” the FAA said in a statement. “These egregious and intentional actions on these dates indicate that you currently lack the degree of care, judgment and responsibility required of a private pilot certificate holder.”