Jacob produced videos for
YouTube and has become known for
skydiving, aviation and snowboarding content. By January 2022, his YouTube channel had over 100,000 subscribers. Jacob walked to the crash site before hiking out and saying that the engine had failed. A month later, Jacob released an edited, 13-minute video (under the title "
I Crashed My Plane") depicting many of these events on his YouTube channel. The video was viewed 1.7 million times before it was removed from YouTube. Jacob told FAA and NTSB investigators that he could not explain why the wreck seemingly vanished.
Guilty plea and sentence On May 11, 2023, the
U.S. Attorney's Office for the
Central District of California announced that Jacob pleaded guilty to a felony charge of "
destruction and concealment with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation", a violation of
section 1519 of
Title 18 of the United States Code. Jacob also admitted that he and an unnamed friend used a helicopter to airlift the wreck to the
Rancho Sisquoc area on December 10, 2021, where Jacob later loaded it onto a truck trailer, moved it to a hangar at
Lompoc Airport, cut it up, and disposed of the pieces in various locations over several days, all without authorization and while telling investigators he did not know the whereabouts of the wreckage. Jacob entered a
plea agreement with federal prosecutors, announced in May 2023. with a scheduled start date of January 29, 2024.
New pilot certificate Less than a week after his December 2023 sentencing, an FAA spokesperson confirmed in a statement to
Los Angeles that the agency had granted Jacob a new pilot certificate. FAA regulations allow a pilot whose certificate is revoked to be granted a new certificate, provided that a year has elapsed since the revocation, the applicant had not committed a drug or alcohol offense, and the applicant undergoes the same training and testing regimen as a new applicant; these conditions had been satisfied, the FAA said. ==References==