Former Olympic snowboarder and YouTube star Trevor Jacob was sentenced to six months in a federal prison after he admitted to intentionally crashing his airplane in Southern California.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District of California, Jacob crashed his single-engine Taylorcraft BL-65 plane on Nov. 24, 2021, while streaming on YouTube in an attempt to get online views. Jacob shared footage of himself ejecting from his plane with a parachute near the Los Padres National Forest while claiming the plane’s lone engine had failed. Jacob pled guilty to one count of destruction and concealment with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation on June 30.
The video captioned, “I Crashed My Airplane,” received more than 4 million views after Jacob shared the footage on YouTube last year.
“Beautiful morning,” said Jacob as he flew 2,000 feet about the mountains on the way to Mammoth Lakes.
The 30-year-old then claimed the plane’s engine had failed. “Holy s—t! I’m over the mountains and I f—king have an engine out,” Jacob said. “Oh s—t. Oh, s—t,” he continued before eventually jumping out of the plane with a parachute. Jacob had several cameras mounted inside the plane that recorded the crash and another on his person recording his landing.
The skydiver later lied to the Federal Aviation Administration when he claimed his airplane’s engine failed.
“Jacob lied to federal investigators when he submitted an aircraft accident incident report that falsely indicated that the aircraft experienced a full loss of power approximately 35 minutes after takeoff,” said a press release by the DOJ. “Jacob also lied to an FAA aviation safety inspector when he said the airplane’s engine had quit and, because he could not identify any safe landing options, he had parachuted out of the plane.”
The DOJ also revealed that he performed the stunt as a promotion for a sponsorship deal he had with a wallet company, and he intentionally lied about the failed engine and jumped from his plane on purpose.
“It appears that [Jacob] exercised exceptionally poor judgment in committing this offense,” said the DOJ. “[Jacob] most likely committed this offense to generate social media and news coverage for himself and to obtain financial gain. Nevertheless, this type of ‘daredevil’ conduct cannot be tolerated.”
The government agency also announced that Jacob obstructed investigators by hiding the location of the plane and destroying the wreckage on December 10, 2021. According to KTLA, Jacob airlifted the wreckage to Rancho Sisquoc in Santa Barbara County and had it “cut up and destroyed.” He shared the video with his YouTube fans on Dec. 23.
Jacob placed ninth in the men’s snowboard cross final at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. His pilot’s license was revoked in 2022, and he faced a maximum 20-year sentence before taking a plea deal and receiving a six-month sentence.
