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YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

justice.gov

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Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#141

Post by throwaway2037 »

foobarian wrote: post #9
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #3

Critically, he is not going to jail for intentionally crashing the plane. He is being jailed "for obstructing a federal investigation by deliberately destroying the wreckage of an airplane." Had he cooperated, it's plausible to see him getting away with a license revocation and fine. Instead he did this: "In the weeks following the plane crash, Jacob lied to investigators that he did not know the wreckage’s location.…

Wow, that's a lot of expensive trouble to go through to cover up. I wonder what the penalties would be otherwise - I'm sure there is some kind of code it broke but it's not obviously illegal. It's like me crashing my car on purpose.

I'm pretty sure it is legal in the United States to buy a car and drive it uninsured on your own private property... and drive it into a brick wall at high speed. There is a YouTuber who is basically doing this now: Buying expensive cars and wrecking them on his private land. (I forget his name, but US-based guy. One video was him wrecking a highly customized Mercedes G Wagon.)

Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#142

Post by NegativeK »

dmix wrote: post #101
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #3

Critically, he is not going to jail for intentionally crashing the plane. He is being jailed "for obstructing a federal investigation by deliberately destroying the wreckage of an airplane." Had he cooperated, it's plausible to see him getting away with a license revocation and fine. Instead he did this: "In the weeks following the plane crash, Jacob lied to investigators that he did not know the wreckage’s location.…

Was the federal investigation already underway before he enacted his plan to cover it up? Or does it not matter. When does an investigation formally start? When they heard about the fake crash like everyone else did when it went viral on youtube?

Aircraft crashes may operate under different rules?

Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#143

Post by civilitty »

lovecg wrote: post #113
ksherlock wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General Aviation airplanes require an annual inspection (from an IA A&P mechanic -- that's airframe & powerplant with inspection authorization). My understanding is that the plane was out of annual (ie, bought as parts) and he fixed it up enough to fly. There are strict limits on what repairs you can do yourself without involving a licensed A&P mechanic. FAA actually does ramp checks on occasion to verify that your b…

Edit: this is wrong as pointed out below. FAA doesn’t mess around with the maintenance regulations. If I remember correctly the A&P knowledge test requirement was to answer 99% of questions correctly, compared to something like 75% for a PPL (I might be way off but there was a large difference).

You're way off. Comically so. A&P passing grade is more like 70%. It's not a comparable figure to PPL ground school.

Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#144

Post by vGPU »

kesslern wrote: post #30
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the whole point of the cover-up is a recognition that a full revelation of the underlying bad act is not survivable There are numerous counter-examples to this claim. In many cases, it's obvious because the cover-up is of a civil infraction.

I feel like the Toupee Fallacy is lurking around in this conversation. We know how many cover-ups are successful, and the ones we know about are nearly universally unsuccessful.

Simple. Look at what was a conspiracy theory in the 80’s and turned into a “yeah we did that, so what” in the 2000’s re: the government?

The Dalai Lama literally pulled down a six figure paycheck from the CIA, for example. The government was, is, and will continue to spy on you.

The difference is that if something is successfully covered up for 10-20-30 years, by the time the public finds out about it nobody really cares.

Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#145

Post by ceejayoz »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #46
mattmaroon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably including Watergate which I believe was the inspiration for that quote. The underlying act was probably survivable. The coverup was not.

It’s worth mentioning that the Watergate coverup eventually failed because of a plane crash and the events set in motion due to it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Air_Lines_Flight_553

Your link says that’s a conspiracy theory?

Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#147

Post by singleshot_ »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #141
foobarian wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's a lot of expensive trouble to go through to cover up. I wonder what the penalties would be otherwise - I'm sure there is some kind of code it broke but it's not obviously illegal. It's like me crashing my car on purpose.

I'm pretty sure it is legal in the United States to buy a car and drive it uninsured on your own private property... and drive it into a brick wall at high speed. There is a YouTuber who is basically doing this now: Buying expensive cars and wrecking them on his private land. (I forget his name, but US-based guy. One video was him wrecking a highly customized Mercedes G Wagon.)

If you google the search terms "talladega big one" you will see a great variety of uninsured, expensive cars being driven on private property and aggressively junked ten or twenty at a time. This is most certainly not illegal without additional bad conduct.

Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#148

Post by madeofpalk »

fxtentacle wrote: post #8

For me, the really interesting question is not if he's guilty - I had assumed as much - but if he will come out financially successful. That video had millions of views and a sponsorship deal. Call me a cynic, but it seems that some companies will deliberately break the law and pay the price if it's worth it, so why not independent hustlers.

How much money would you take to spend 6 months in jail?

Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#149

Post by omginternets »

jxf wrote: post #66
omginternets wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Applying a bit of abduction, I see two narratives that track: 1. Some other illicit activity was going on in or around that plane. 2. The pilot thought he could make the whole mess go away by erasing physical evidence of the crash; his reasoning might be along the lines of "no evidence, no feds". I find both equally credible. I'm stumped.

Never overestimate the intelligence of someone willing to jump out of a moving plane for clicks and views.

Never underestimate the propensity of a criminal to engage in multiple crimes.

I maintain it could go either way.

Re: YouTuber sentenced to 6 months in prison for obstructing probe into plane crash

#150

Post by selcuka »

kesslern wrote: post #30
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the whole point of the cover-up is a recognition that a full revelation of the underlying bad act is not survivable There are numerous counter-examples to this claim. In many cases, it's obvious because the cover-up is of a civil infraction.

I feel like the Toupee Fallacy is lurking around in this conversation. We know how many cover-ups are successful, and the ones we know about are nearly universally unsuccessful.

> We know how many cover-ups are successful

Did you mean "we don't know"?

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