Trevor Jacob plane crash
Taylorcraft BL-65 · Deliberately crashed as a publicity stunt
From Lompoc Airport (LPC) to Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22LA049
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- Event fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 1
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 1
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Taylorcraft BL-65
- Aircraft type
- Taylorcraft BL-65
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N29508
- Operator
- Trevor Jacob
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lompoc Airport (LPC), Lompoc, CATo Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH), Mammoth Lakes, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 81 years (built 1940)
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Security/criminal event
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Miscellaneous
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
Trevor Daniel Jacob (born August 6, 1993) is an American Olympic athlete, snowboard cross competitor, extreme sports athlete, YouTuber, and light aircraft pilot. He represented the United States in snowboarding in the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Jacob posted a YouTube video in December 2021 in which he parachuted out of a light aircraft claiming engine failure. The Federal Aviation Administration revoked his pilot certificate after determining that he had intentionally crashed the plane for the sole purpose of filming it. In May 2023, Jacob pleaded guilty to a charge of obstruction of justice, having disposed of the aircraft wreckage without authorization or supervision while lying to federal investigators about its disposition. He admitted that he intentionally crashed the plane for notoriety and profit. He was sentenced to six months in prison.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Trevor Jacob” (revision 1313958742, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the airplane’s engine lost power during cruise flight over mountainous terrain. He stated that after determining that there were no available emergency landing spots, he decided to bail out. The airplane was destroyed during the impact sequence, and the pilot sustained minor injuries as a result of the parachute jump.
Shortly after the accident, the pilot provided a statement regarding the circumstances to the NTSB and FAA, and in a series of correspondences later stated that he had not been able to locate the airplane wreckage. However, evidence gathered by the NTSB and FAA indicated that the pilot had recovered the airplane from the accident site, destroyed it, and then disposed of the remains.
The case was referred to the U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, and in May 2023, the pilot admitted to the US Attorney’s Office that he both intentionally crashed the airplane, and destroyed the evidence. He plead guilty to a felony charge for obstructing a federal investigation by deliberately destroying the airplane wreckage.
Probable cause
The pilot’s decision to intentionally crash the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Trevor Jacob
- Article
- Trevor Jacob
- Revision
- 1313958742 · 2025-09-29 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q15641103
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record WPR22LA049
- Event ID
- 20211127104325
- Case number
- WPR22LA049
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Trevor Jacob" (page 41900425, revision 1313958742); merged with NTSB case WPR22LA049 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record WPR22LA049: NTSB API eventDate, eventTimeUtc and eventTimeUtcOffsetHours (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record WPR22LA049
- Map position
- NTSB record WPR22LA049: events decimal coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record WPR22LA049: aircraft; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record WPR22LA049: operated under Part 91: General Aviation
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities (the NTSB record states no total)
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record WPR22LA049: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Trevor Jacob" and NTSB case WPR22LA049, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.