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A man’s pilot licence has been revoked after aviation officials said he crashed his plane on purpose to get YouTube views.
Trevor Jacob posted a video in December in which he jumped out of his light aircraft in California after the propeller apparently stopped working.
He was already wearing a parachute when he took off – a highly unusual move – had cameras strapped to the plane as well as a selfie stick to record his fall.
Jacob then filmed himself trekking through the remote Los Padres National Forest to get help and later recovered the plane’s wreckage and the video from the on-board cameras.
America’s Federal Aviation Administration investigated and has concluded he acted recklessly and took away his licence.
It agreed with the comments of others on the video that his actions on the November flight were very suspicious.
He didn’t try restarting the engine by increasing airflow over the propeller; failed to contact air traffic control or glide to one of several areas where he could have landed; and was wearing a “sport parachute” in the cockpit.
The FAA’s letter to Jacob, seen by The New York Times, said: “You demonstrated a lack of care, judgment and responsibility by choosing to jump out of an aircraft solely so you could record the footage of the crash.”
Jacob is a former snowboarder who competed at the 2014 Olympics and posts videos of other extreme stunts.
He insists he had a genuine emergency and in a video this week claimed he is now on the FBI’s terror watchlist.
“I didn’t think that just posting a video of an adventure gone south would ruffle so many feathers,” he said.
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