Originally published at: YouTuber who filmed own plane crashing admits he did it for the views | Boing Boing
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Obligs
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For maximum effect, shouldn’t he stay in the plane?
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“Ow, my Balls” was optimistic. “Dude, did you see me crash my plane?” is the future our children should fear to inherit, especially once we amend the constitution to read that any law inhibiting the netting of cash is immoral and unconstitutional…
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Oh the kids are alright. Even the kids saw through this dumb stunt.
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I love that there were YouTubers who posted very detailed “this was deliberate; let me tell you how I figured it out” videos within a relatively short time after the crash. I remember watching one that matched screen caps from the crash video to a plausible flight path in Google Maps or a simulator or something, and then continued with that sort of high-level detail through the crash, plane condition, suspicious items on the scene, and the walk-out. Thoroughly researched, well-presented, and totally convincing.
Never underestimate people with real knowledge, interest, and skill to call sketchy folks on their bullshit.
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Next time he should crash it on open ocean. He’ll get a lot more views.
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The really ridiculous thing is that if he’d been more ambitious, he might well have not only gotten government approval for his plan, but also funding. In 1984, NASA and the FAA deliberately crashed a Boeing 720 in order to test several ideas and systems, so there is precedent. If he’d written up his ideas and proposed an actual test of systems and proecedures, submitted it through the system, (ok, and probably hired some lawyers and taken some bureaucrats out to lunch) it’s entirely possible that the FAA would have approved the operation, and possibly even helped find a place to crash and assigned funding to help cover costs.
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I’m beginning to suspect our ‘Smash that Like button, ring the bell, comment below’ culture is entirely a healthy one.
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That seems like the kind of thing that should result in him never flying again.
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Not!
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Rates “up” there (in my opinion, worst of the bunch) with early YT, when seemingly every other video was of parents allowing their children to “cutely” fall from their highchairs.
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These stunts required escalation in order to retain jaded viewers.
Next step: rocket —> sun.
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Let’s hope that’s the case. The FAA already revoked his license over a year ago based on the fact that whether or not it was a “real” emergency (and they were very suspicious about that from the get-go) he still acted recklessly and didn’t follow a number of procedures that any trained pilot should have. With luck this admission of guilt will mean that he can never get it back even if he re-applies sometime in the future.
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Um, rando idiot YouTuber is never going to get approval for that. He’s not an engineer, a scientist, a researcher or public policy expert of any kind. He has no credentials or credibility in anything even remotely related to aerospace, public transport, environmental science or anything else that might net someone a grant to do such a test.
The right thing for him to do was nothing. Don’t crash a plane at all.
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Time for the Weird Al cover “I’m only happy crashing planes”.
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I’m a long time pilot, and this was all so stupid and so transparent and I have no idea why he thought he was going to get away with fooling anyone - least of all the pilot community and the FAA.
My very favorite part is that he jumped out with his headset on. That just tickles me, and I don’t know why. Def not needing it outside the airplane, and it just whapped around in the wind on the way down.
More than license revocation, he should be fined, jailed, shamed, have “dipshit” tattooed on his forehead… something.
I remember when this happened I watched a video or two about it by other pilots, and it was pretty clear he did it on purpose.
His pilot’s licence was revoked last year.
Good.
Well, since the charge he pleaded guilty to was destroying evidence, probably not? Maybe he committed another crime by recklessly crashing a plane for no reason, but given there was minimal actual damage to anything that wasn’t his property, he probably would have just gotten off with losing his pilot’s license forever.
As far as the sponsor, the press release from the feds said that it was a “wallet sponser”, and in the video he shills Ridge wallets (right after talking about spreading his friend’s ashes, a really cool time for a plug), so if you want to know who funded this idiocy, there you go.
For me it’s the fact that he didn’t have it plugged in (probably to make sure it didn’t snag when he jumped). And since he wasn’t panicked, he made sure to have it with him, because those things cost money, so why waste it along with the plane?
And FWIW, the sponsor may well have known nothing about it. There are two main types of YouTube video sponsorships- ones where the sponsor has editorial sign-off on the video, and ones where they don’t, and are simply quoted an expected number of views. The former are more common- most reputable brands want to see what they are putting their name on. However if you’re an experienced YouTuber with a history of delivering views, some sponsors don’t care as much. There are some who just say, “go for it, we don’t care what the video is about as long as we get eyeballs”. Particularly if you’ve worked with them before and built some trust.
Either way, this wallet maker doesn’t come out looking great, but the guy’s assertion that “the sponsor made me do it” is bullshit. In neither type of deal will a sponsor ever tell you to do something that stupid.
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