YouTuber Trevor Jacob who deliberately sent his plane crashing to the ground just to score social media views pleaded guilty to a felony charge for obstructing a federal investigation and is facing 30 years in prison.

The charge against Jacob — one count of destruction and concealment with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation — carries a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.

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According to US authorities, Jacob destroyed the wreckage of the small single-engine plane that he deliberately crashed in California’s Los Padres national forest in December 2021. The video in question has already had over 3 million views on YouTube.

Who is Trevor Jacob?

Trevor Jacob is a 29-year-old YouTuber and former Olympic snowboarder. Although he was once certified as a private pilot, he no longer enjoys that privilege after he admitted in his plea agreement that he lied about the aircraft’s total loss of power just so that he could crash it and garner views for his channel. In the past, he has described himself as an experienced pilot and skydiver.

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The clip in question, titled ‘I Crashed My Plane’ was recorded on November 24, 2021. He took off from Lompoc City Airport in a 1940 Taylorcraft to a scheduled destination of Mammoth Lakes, California. In his YouTube video, he stated that he planned to scatter the ashes of Johnny Strange, who was his late best friend, at Mammoth Lakes.

Jacob ended up parachuting out of the aircraft, 35 minutes into the flight, after claiming that it had malfunctioned, with a selfie stick in hand. Meanwhile, the plane, in question, was covered with multiple cameras so that Jacob could effectively capture the so-called malfunctioning aircraft. After making a safe landing, Jacob hiked to the wreckage to collect the video footage from the cameras mounted on the plane.