It was a mile-high flub.
A California YouTuber could be facing serious jail time after revealing that he orchestrated a plane crash in an alleged attempt to garner views for his channel.
Trevor Jacob, a 29-year-old pilot and skydiver, copped to his unorthodox flight plan as part of a recent plea deal.
Jacob confessed that he intended to make money from the crash as part of a sponsorship deal for the promotion of a company’s wallet on his channel, according to the United States Attorney’s Office.
He agreed to plead guilty to one felony count of “destruction and concealment” with the goal of obstructing a federal investigation, charges that could land him a maximum 20-year prison sentence, the Justice Department said.
The mile-high huckster’s so-called accident occurred in November 2021 while he was flying over Los Padres National Forest in Santa Barbara County.
In the video, which boasts 3.1 million views, the Los Angeles-based snowboarder — whose pilot license was revoked by the Federal Aviation Administration in April 2022 — could be seen passing above a mountain range while holding the ashes of his friend, base jumper Johnny Strange, who died in 2015.
Jacob’s solo flight seemingly went south after one of his propellers wound to a halt, whereupon he commented that he had “an engine out” and opened the plane door.
The high-flying faker, who has more than 118,000 YouTube subscribers, then jumped out of the moving aircraft with a parachute and filmed his descent using a selfie stick.
Meanwhile, cameras installed in the pilotless plane provided a POV shot of the aircraft crashing into a mountainside.
Investigators said that his ejection occurred around 35 minutes after takeoff, Storyful reported.
The latter half of the video showed the purported plane crash survivor stumbling over bushes in the desert in the aftermath of his alleged crash-landing.
“It’s so hot out here — I need water so bad,” lamented Jacob, who claimed he didn’t have cell phone service.
The YouTuber eventually stumbled upon the wreckage of his plane and retrieved the cameras, according to the Justice Department.
It wasn’t until a little more than a year later that the YouTuber’s story started to crash and burn.
The Justice Department noted Jacog reported the crash to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) two days after the incident.
In the weeks after the staged catastrophe, the Californian told authorities he’d help them find the downed plane, then “lied” about knowing its whereabouts.
However, prosecutors claim that Jacob and a friend had helicoptered to the crash site on Dec. 10, 2021, to retrieve the wreckage.
He then destroyed the parts and disposed of them in trash receptacles at Lompoc City Airport and elsewhere.
Jacob admitted in the plea agreement that he’d junked the plane parts in order to cover up the evidence of his crash-querade.
That apparently wasn’t the flyboy’s only fib.
In the plea deal, Jacob admitted to falsely telling investigators that the plane had lost power and that he deployed the parachute because he couldn’t find a safe place to touch down — a claim he repeated in the video as well.
That excuse had been initially criticized by YouTube commenters, who said they noticed some ideal landing spots in the clip.
Viewers also observed that Jacob wore a skydiving suit — not the typical pilot attire — which seemed to suggest that his ejection was premeditated.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California concluded that the YouTuber “did not intend to reach his destination.”
They claimed that he’d “instead planned to eject from his aircraft during the flight and video himself parachuting to the ground and his airplane as it descended and crashed.”
That contradicted a January 2022 statement the aeronaut made, in which he insisted that he did not purposely crash his plane for “views on YouTube” and simply has a habit of “filming everything I do.”
Jacob is slated to make an initial court appearance in “the coming weeks,” according to the Justice Department.