For the likes: YouTuber faked a forced landing and smashed the plane

There is no limit to the desire for attention: Olympic snowboarder Trevor Jacob uploaded a video in which the plane's engine was seen alive and he himself fell to the ground with a parachute, wandering for hours in the remote wilderness, until at night he was rescued by local farmers.

But then some big question marks began to arise

Walla!

Tourism

24/01/2022

Monday, 24 January 2022, 08:06 Updated: 08:12

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Skydiving at Habonim Beach (Photo: Yossi Tzipkis)

The YouTuber and Olympic snowboarder Trevor Jacob is currently at the center of a scandal, after he was accused of crashing his light aircraft, in order to gain views on his YouTube channel.

Jacob, who represented the United States at the 2014 Winter Olympics, took off on November 24 from a local airport in the Santa Barbara area of ​​California.

He planned to disperse from the air the ashes of his friend, Johnny Strange, who was killed last year during a sporting surf in Switzerland.

The Australian News.com website reports that Jacob boarded the single-engine plane, manufactured in 1940, while hitched to a parachute, and made his way toward Mammoth Lakes, California.

Everything looks fine during the flight, while Jacobs is seen raising his thumb towards the GoPro camera mounted on the plane's dashboard.

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Jacob photographs himself falling after leaving the plane (Photo: screenshot, YouTube)

Comes to a water source with perfect timing

But then, things started to go wrong.

The video he uploaded to his YouTube channel about a month later and has so far garnered 1.3 million views, he edited from two cameras: one inside the cockpit and the other - mounted on one of the wings.

The video shows the plane propeller as it begins to falter, and Jacob opens the plane door to look out.

After a few seconds in which he looks worried, he opens the entire plane door, and jumps down, while strapped to a parachute on his back.

The video continues, as Jacob photographs himself plummeting, reaching straight into a cluster of bushes, in the heart of the remote wilderness.

Next, we see in the video the plane, while the GoPro camera continues to shoot it, until it eventually crashes on a mountainside.

The crash occurred in the area of ​​the Los Padres National Forest, located in a secluded area.

Jacob makes his way to the plane, reaches for it and picks up a number of items from it. Later he continues on his way for hours. In perfect timing with the sunset, he finds a flowing stream, drinks from its waters and stops for the night. Hours later, he hears a car, and runs to it. Eventually, he gets help from farmers he met in the field. In the video, Jacob is heard telling farmers that he was forced to abandon the plane due to an (alleged) malfunction in the engine. "The engine broke down and I had no place to land. I always fly a parachute," he told them. "I thought to myself, I can jump now or try and land. Then I said 'fuck,' and I was out. When I opened the parachute, the plane came back and almost hit me."

In addition to the video, Jacob also uploaded to his Instagram account a picture of the wrecked plane, writing: "I recently flew over the mountains in a small plane when an engine failure occurred. It was the most intense experience of my life. I did not think I would get out of it alive. After my friend was killed in the same lane "Flight, I promised myself I would always fly a parachute. It was useful."

Later, Jacob edited the caption of the picture, writing simply: "My plane crashed. There is a video on my YouTube channel."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Trevor Jacob (@trevorjacob)

Jacob opens the plane door and jumps down, while harnessed to a parachute on his back (Photo: screenshot, YouTube)

An old plane that needs many repairs

However, the video soon began to raise questions among aviation people.

A number of pilots responded to the video and refuted Jacob's explanations.

For example, the video does not show the attempts to carry out the protocols that are supposed to be carried out in the event of an engine failure, nor the Jacob's attempts to find a proper place for a rape landing.

In addition, sources at the airport from which Jacob took off later told the media that Jacob had purchased the plane "which needs extensive maintenance work".

Skeptics even wondered why Jacob flew while the parachute was strapped to his back.

Jacob's condition even worsened when the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently decided to open an investigation into the case.

At this time, no response has been received from the U.S. Aviation Authority.

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