There’s no question that the YouTube ecosystem incentivizes a lot of bad behavior, no argument there.
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Also, this is a CA forest, so he was willing to risk a potentially massive wildfire/human and animal deaths/suffering for the views.
I hope his insurance company, and the state attorney haul his ass to court (assuming that this is likely felony insurance fraud as well).
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As someone familiar with the risk levels of hobbyist aviation, as it is. 
Poseur.
He should have gone down with the ship, and died for the clicks?
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The FAA doesn’t have a law enforcement capability not because of some Republican bone-headedness but because it doesn’t need it. Criminal violations of FAA regulations are very rare. The tone of the article was misleading in implying that the FAA canceling this guy’s license is all that’s going to happen. I’m not an aviation regulation expert but here’s my understanding: the FAA may regulate the license, but it does not investigate crashes. The crash, and what caused the crash, are the criminal issues. A whole separate process starts with the NTSB to investigate that. It typically takes one to two years. The NTSB itself also does not have a criminal law enforcement arm but obviously, many of the things they investigate turn out to be crimes, so they work cooperatively with whichever agency is going to do the criminal investigation. They need to be flexible about that because sometimes that’s federal (in this case) and sometimes it’s state or local. The NTSB has no problem making sure that when someone commits a crime that person gets prosecuted. None of this is partisan political stuff.
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IIRC from one of the investigative videos that came out after the stunt, he purchased the plane pretty cheaply due to it having some serious maintenance issues, which he did nothing to fix before taking off on the flight documented so thoroughly above. And then he had a helicopter come haul away the wreckage a week later.
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Putting the FAA in FAAFO
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I’m really not sure what that had to do with what I said… Maybe you meant to reply to someone else? I wasn’t talking about whether or not they have law enforcment capability.
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I was replying to the combination of what you said and what Akimbo_not said.
Anyway… back to the FAA… they actually have something called the Law Enforcement Assistance Program to help law enforcement make criminal cases.
This idiot who pulled this stunt has lost his license but that’s just the beginning of his problems. I assume the NTSB must investigate every air crash, including this one. They have to go through a lot of steps but they will finally get to the obvious conclusion and will assist in charging this guy.
I guess this crashing his plane with one survivor and getting caught by the FAA wasn’t part of the plan after all.
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I said literally nothing about the FAA. If you want to talk to @anon48584343, reply to them, not to me.
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The FAA is pretty busy investigating folks intentionally jumping out of their planes lately:
Dang bureaucrats and their silly “laws.”
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Copy of FAA letter
Looks like he can apply for a license again in a year. Thats nice.
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If the FAA revokes your license, you have to wait a year and begin from scratch-- and earn any additional certifications (instrument rating, multi engine, etc) anew. And even then, the FAA might veto it
An article about a far more sympathetic character whose license was yanked.
If there is any saving grace to this predicament, it is that all previous flight time remains valid. There is no need to acquire another 40 hours of flight time, for example, to retake the private pilot checkride. But, before taking the practical test for each of the certificates and ratings that have been lost, you are required to receive three hours of instruction from a CFI.
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