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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

#201

Post by MBCook »

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.…

Is there any reason to believe that there will be a future trial in which he gets in trouble for purposefully crashing the plane as well?

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

#202

Post by tass »

avar wrote: post #29
duskwuff wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note, however, that this doesn't mean that he would have gotten away with it if he'd cooperated. It means that the federal prosecutor decided that the act of obstruction would be easier to prove, since the intentional nature of those acts is much more self-evident.

> [...]this doesn't mean that he would have gotten away with it if he'd cooperated[...] If he'd stuck to the story that he just had an engine mishap would they have been able to prove that it was intentional? They'd almost certainly have revoked his license to ever fly again, but filming everything you're doing isn't illegal. Nor is wearing a parachute because you know you're a crappy pilot that'll bail out at the fi…

Probably, because he was stupid enough to record a video with cameras in the plane. But there’s plenty of ways to achieve it which could pass as accidental:

Accidentally lean mixture (e.g., grab the wrong control). Set to use an empty fuel tank. Set the fuel valve to off or in between settings. With some preparation, destroy a spark plug or two, only enable those spark plugs in the air - extreme misfires will be obvious on video.

There are plenty of pilots who wear chutes (and there are special chutes which basically replace your seat) but he also had a fire extinguisher strapped to his leg which is not a normal occurrence.

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

#203

Post by hluska »

cat_plus_plus wrote: post #187

Give such folks an option of a stint in the army or risky civil service like firefighting or wilderness rescue. They obviously have some skill and courage, teach them to channel it in socially constructive ways while compensating society for dealing with their stupidity.

I know a few people who are currently active in search and rescue organizations. None of them deserve to be forced to work with anyone like this fool - they’re professionals who control risk as much as humanly possible. This is an individual who put himself and others at incredible risk for views.

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

#204

Post by splatzone »

hluska wrote: post #203
cat_plus_plus wrote: post #187

Give such folks an option of a stint in the army or risky civil service like firefighting or wilderness rescue. They obviously have some skill and courage, teach them to channel it in socially constructive ways while compensating society for dealing with their stupidity.

I know a few people who are currently active in search and rescue organizations. None of them deserve to be forced to work with anyone like this fool - they’re professionals who control risk as much as humanly possible. This is an individual who put himself and others at incredible risk for views.

I think what GP was suggesting was that this person might have a chance to redeem themselves if they were surrounded by, and came to respect, people like you're describing. Do you think that's ever possible?

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

#205

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

bmitc wrote: post #89
bhhaskin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a law that says you can't intentionally crash a plane? Honest question. There isn't a law that prevents you from intentionally crashing other vehicles. Just around property damage and endangering other people.

> There isn't a law that prevents you from intentionally crashing other vehicles. Just around property damage and endangering other people. Those two sentences don't make any sense next to each other. There's no way to intentionally crash your vehicle that doesn't include several other things for which their are specific laws for. One can't intentionally crash a car in the same way that you can intentionally swing a…

> One can't intentionally crash a car in the same way that you can intentionally swing a bat in your backyard without hitting anything

What exactly do you mean here? I've witnessed plenty of vehicle damage done on private ranchland from various obstacles, and in some cases, other family/friends' vehicles. If you wanted to drive your vehicle into a big rock on your own land, what exactly stops you?

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

#206

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

fbdab103 wrote: post #193
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is it a felony-20-years-in-a-FPITA-prison illegal, or a giant-fine-and-revocation-of-pilot-license illegal Probably the latter unless someone gets hurt. (Agree with you that this was a dumb cover-up. Particularly when he seems to have done the cover up before posting the video?)

When does it become a cover-up vs "oopsie, didn't know"? If he had dismantled the plane before the FAA knew about the crash, would that still qualify as destroying evidence?

Chopping up the plane and distributing the pieces in assorted different regular trash bins over time sounds like mens rea to me

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

#207

Post by fbdab103 »

andrewinardeer wrote: post #110
voisin wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t the Martha Stewart insider trading story one of these counter examples?

Martha Stewart was never convicted for insider trading. This is a common mistake people make. She was found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct, of obstruction of an agency proceeding, and of making false statements.

Had she said she made the trade(s) on the basis of a tip, would that have been the better outcome? Was keeping her mouth shut an option?

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

#208

Post by emilburzo »

resolutebat wrote: post #11

Plenty of previous discussion on HN, but IMHO the most interesting one was the early dissection of whether or not the crash was intentional: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29729307

As one of the people who commented on that thread, it was really eye-opening to see the group dynamics involved between people who have experience in the domain vs those who don't.

It definitely made me look at online debates a lot differently, as previously I thought good points can come from anywhere (which can still happen), but it turns out experience in the domain is usually way more relevant.

I guess it's similar to that effect where if you see news about a topic you don't know, you tend to take/believe everything as-is, but if you happen to know the domain, you'll usually spot quite a few factual errors which tend to discredit most of the news.

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

#209

Post by masklinn »

throw0101b wrote: post #166
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can probably do whatever you want with your private vehicle on your private land Sort of. Own plane, own land and a filed flight path should satisfy the FAA's requirements, though you may also need to take active measures to ensure your private land is clear of things that could be harmed. After that, there is the environmental component. Our influencer here not only inundated the crash site with leaded avgas, but…

> Own plane, own land and a filed flight path should satisfy the FAA's requirements, though you may also need to take active measures to ensure your private land is clear of things that could be harmed. If he had a private air field/airport and "landed" (crashed) the plane on his air field, then that could be argued, but there's still the fact that he bailed out of the airplane and left it in an uncontrolled state, i…

Otoh people crash stuff on the reg (crash tests, stunts, …) and an unoccupied plane should be quite predictable. If you can demonstrate that you secured the area and it is large enough there is low-to-no chances of the plane getting out from bailout conditions everyone woukd likely be satisfied.

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

#210

Post by throwaway290 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #132
kuchenbecker wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have statistics on the marginal cost of 5mph? Id be interested to understand your certainty that e.g. 60mph is both more fatal and the number of deaths that could be prevented by going 55mph. I expect there are relatively few deaths that can be directly attributed to 5mph, but given evidence I'll reconsider.

to be fair, they didnt claim it is likely, just that it could kill. You could make the same point about going 5mph under the speed limit. It is somewhat interesting to think about the factors that go into setting a punishment. It is rarely the magnitude of potential damage (worst case), and often not even the damage adjusted by the probability of occurrence. Most often, it has more to do with subjective custom and no…

Certain companies dumping massive amounts of certain chemicals into water supply for many years are not even found guilty.

5mph over in a city or intentional plane crash in the wilderness and misleading investigators are small enough to be bad things, but do bad things at sufficient scale and those things are no longer bad.

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