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FAA investigating controversial crash video

540 points by nostromo 5y ago

eCa 5y ago
Really looking forward to commentary from Mentour and blancolirio on this. Judging from Mentour’s comment on the video I think it’s an understatement to say that he thinks it is correct for the FAA to investigate...
- Laforet 5y ago
  Just wanna chime in and say that Mentour has been doing a great job with his videos. There is a lot of low effort air crash videos on YouTube that does not do much more than reading off the official report or the script of an ACI episode. Mentour is one of the few that goes beyond that by injecting actual professional insight into the events.
- geocrasher 5y ago
  I actually emailed this to blancolirio and ask him to cover it. He's a great commentator.
- LinuxBender 5y ago
  Also "Probable Cause: Dan Gryder" He can be a little harsh on people but usually for good reason.
idatum 5y ago
HN will feed more clicks, even in good faith to question this video. The company behind that stupid wallet thing he's promoting is probably happy, at least for now. And GOOG won't pull this, at least for now. Fact checkers? lol What a f'd up online world. EDIT: oh, and it was NordicTrack that bought the ad before I could watch the video.
daveslash 5y ago
This might be off topic, but can you really just spread human remains willy-nilly like that? I know people do it, but from what I understand, you're not supposed to. Sure, it may "just be ashes", but it's human remains nonetheless. We cremated my late father in law here in California, and first we wanted to spread his ashes at sea, then we thought we wanted to have them interred, then we thought maybe we'd hold onto them. Every time we changed our minds we had to update our permit for human remains. While I think we can all probably agree that spreading a handful of ashes in the wilderness is not really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, legally speaking, would you want to publicize that?
coryfklein 5y ago
I'm impressed how quickly folks here are able to arrive at the most certain conclusion that this was staged! While that explanation seems possible (and not unlikely), I keep coming back to Hanlon's Razor: > Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. The individual seems to have decent skills at YouTube'ing and probably paragliding, but most of the video seems easily explained by him simply being a stupid pilot. Let me spin an alternative narrative and you compare it to the narrative of malicious intent to see whether one is more obviously true than the other. Amateur pilot YouTuber has invested money in several GoPros. Costs him nothing to mount them all over the airplane for some cool footage on the way. The engine stops midflight. The pilot tries a few things (cut from the video so he doesn't look incompetent to his subscribers), but he hasn't flown in a while and has forgotten what he's supposed to do in this scenario. "Was there an acronym? ABC: abort, blame, no that's not it. GLO: Glide, Land, Observe?" The tiny plane has no radio so he can't phone a friend for help. Could he land on that stream bed down there? Possibly... "Dammit, I might be skilled enough to land this, but I have spent a gajillion hours live-streaming my skydives recently and THAT I definitely know how to do." Pilot grabs the GoPro off the dashboard just like he did on his last 10 skydives and jumps out of the plane. In his panicked state of mind, he doesn't realise that he should pull the chute ASAP and he falls back on his skydiving experience and freefalls for a decent amount of time before thinking to pull the chute. Like the terrible pilot he is, he didn't spend much time looking at the route of his flight plans and he doesn't know where he is. He has a bag of gear in the plane, so he follows the plane to where it crashes in hopes of getting his water bottle, even though it means he has to land in the brambles. Unsurprisingly, he can't locate his gear but he's able to escape with only some scratches. He barely escaped a death caused by his stupidity, but maybe he can salvage this difficult situation with a well edited YouTube video... Now some of you might say that this is a just-so story crafted to spin a particular narrative, but how is that different from all the other stories here portraying him as a well-trained pilot and ascribing all sorts of other characteristics to him? Honestly I won't be surprised whichever direction the FAA investigation comes back, but I am surprised at how certain all the "skeptics" here are of the facts they're able to extract from such a heavily edited video.
mito88 5y ago
he resembles that youtuber who was dumped by the love of his life...
- mito88 5y ago
  https://youtu.be/0zpVfyEw6nU https://youtu.be/0zpVfyEw6nU
shockeychap 5y ago
The real question is, do you think “Ridge Wallet” will continue to sponsor him?
JudasGoat 5y ago
Personally I was sad when I read that the airplane was made in 1939. To survive all that time just to be wrecked for views, so wasteful.
K0balt 5y ago
I love the obviously disconnected fuel line with the fuel selector valve bobbing around in plain view. As a pilot, this guy did nothing pilot-like in response to the engine out, even making an effort to get the engine to STOP turning over by intentionally reducing airspeed to near stall. There were suitable landing strips within range at his altitude if you look at the map( the view of the river pinpoints his location). Also, he was going paragliding but did not bring his paragliding gear? Not his plane either, he left his plane at the airport he picked this one up at? This was an intentional act 110%. The FAA will pull his ticket. He’s an idiot. Hopefully there’s insurance involved so he can go to jail too.
giarc 5y ago
I only watched about the first half of the video, but I understand there is controversy whether this was an accident or a planned wreck. If so, I think there is an easy answer, he should just release the footage of when the engine started to fail. There should be a good chunk of time where he is trying to restart, should also be genuine surprise when that happened and not a shot of him shutting the engine down. The youtube video (or at least the first half) didn't include that, only cut to a point where he has obviously decided to jump. He may claim to have turned off the gopro on the dash, but there was a gopro on the left wing that was focused on the cockpit that should show his reaction.
- cdiamand 5y ago
  Came here to say this. Pilots are drilled to work an extensive engine-out checklist during training. In this situation, the pilot had what seemed like a significant amount of altitude (time) to work the problem.
  - planesceptic 5y ago
    So, I’m a complete ignorant when it comes to planes, but I do have the habit of giving folks BOTD and so I was wondering a few things: 1. How experienced a pilot is this man? Is he a very junior novice or experienced such that this should be a non-factor. 2. I see lots of folks mentioned hardwares in the comments - would a vintage craft (80+ years) be lacking good maintenance or equipment? All in all I think he needs to release full footage otherwise he isn’t actually helping anyone as he claims to hope to. At the same time I see lots of armchair quarterbacking on what should have happened - but having been in high stress situations (fist, knife, and gun fights) in my life your reactions are never what you expect from the comfort of a computer chair. I’ve also witnessed as a software engineer very “senior” folks with loss of experience make amateur choices in no-stress situations - I cannot imagine the “oh shit this plane is going down” stress. Wish someone would have a good layman explanation instead of showing off their personal knowledge.
    - Syonyk 5y ago
      > 1. How experienced a pilot is this man? Is he a very junior novice or experienced such that this should be a non-factor. Shouldn't matter. By the time the FAA examiner gives you a pilot's license, they should be convinced that you can safely handle aviation, to include engine failures. But unless the airplane is literally coming apart around you, bailing out of a light airplane is almost always the wrong answer. They land fairly slow, especially an old T-craft, and it doesn't take very many feet of deceleration room for it to be something you walk away from. I'm not familiar with the particular accident and circumstances, but nothing I've seen in the avweb writeup makes it look very good. And I generally suspect YouTube "pilots" are mostly in it for the views, and nothing sells views like a crash. As far as "the engine has quit" stress, as long as the rest of the airplane is in good shape, it's still a perfectly good airplane. And pilots regularly train (at least, should...) for engine out landings. It's a common event in training - you get somewhere near the airport, the instructor pulls the throttle back and says, "Your engine quit." I hate to say it's not a big deal, because if it quits for real, you'll certainly be sweating, but a general aviation airplane doesn't fall out of the sky if the engine quits.
colechristensen 5y ago
The FAA/NTSB investigates basically every crash, they do a good job. I doubt they will react kindly to crashing on purpose for views.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  > The FAA/NTSB investigates basically every crash No. The NTSB investigates significant accidents (either commercial operations or passengers involved.) There's an average of 400 GA accidents per year, so about one a day. If two CFIs climb into a Piper and crash, it probably won't be investigated. Add a passenger, then the NTSB gets interested. Source: commercially-rated airplane pilot.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    The NTSB website says: "The National Transportation Safety Board is an independent Federal agency charged by Congress with investigating every civil aviation accident in the United States and significant accidents in other modes of transportation – railroad, highway, marine and pipeline." So if the NTSB is not investigating every civil aviation crash, then they are failing in their congressional mandate. If you have evidence of this, you should probably contact your congress person or a newspaper with the details.
    - galago 5y ago
      I wonder how they define a "civil aviation accident"? In places like Alaska, people routinely land at sites which are not airports. If someone has a hard landing, there could be some damage to the aircraft with no injuries. Do they investigate every one of those? It might be there are a lot of minor "accidents" that fall into grey areas. I don't know if that's the case, I'm actually curious if anyone knows.
      - imoverclocked 5y ago
        That sounds like an incident, not an accident. They are treated differently. > [1] Aircraft accident means an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and all such persons have disembarked, and in which any person suffers death or serious injury, or in which the aircraft receives substantial damage. Substantial damage is then defined as: > Substantial damage means damage or failure which adversely affects the structural strength, performance, or flight characteristics of the aircraft, and which would normally require major repair or replacement of the affected component. Engine failure or damage limited to an engine if only one engine fails or is damaged, bent fairings or cowling, dented skin, small punctured holes in the skin or fabric, ground damage to rotor or propeller blades, and damage to landing gear, wheels, tires, flaps, engine accessories, brakes, or wingtips are not considered substantial damage for the purpose of this part. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/830.2 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/830.2
thrill 5y ago
That aircraft could land on a driveway, much less the miles of dirt roads visible all around.
- Syonyk 5y ago
  Seriously. Your average dirt road is probably comparable to some of the runways it used to fly off when it was new.
runjake 5y ago
A lot of mistakes were made. The FAA is investigating and I'm sure they will come to a sound conclusion. This is the most I can say, based on the footage I've watched. I cannot speak to his intent. Anything more is just Internet Pile-On, and the Internet can use less of that.
- quasarj 5y ago
  Thank you. People are so full of shit, thinking they can spot anything as being fake.. or knowing his intentions. There just isn't enough information yet.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  I don't think it's wrong to talk about this rather than sit in complete silence until the FAA releases a report.
  - planesceptic 5y ago
    I agree, but the comments are all either “how dare he place an ad in his video (contractual, perhaps?)” to “I would never” There isn’t much meat on the bone, to a layman at least.
- mmaunder 5y ago
  Not in this case. /r/flying put this idiocy on the map. FAA is an imperfect organization. Check out some of the discussions around pilots masking mental health issues to maintain medical status.
  - fennecfoxen 5y ago
    What I’ve heard from a friend is: you should have a really good general practitioner, and a good doctor who certifies you, and they must never, ever communicate with or even be aware of each other. (I do not study airplane.)
- gmiller123456 5y ago
  The FAA/NTSB is pretty good at determining why a plane crashed, not so much on judging people's intentions, that's usually left to a jury.
emilburzo 5y ago
There's definitely some suspicious stuff going on: - gave up waaaay too early compared to any pilot I've seen with an engine out - skydiving rig[1] (bulky, more/less easy to reach handles, steerable) instead of safety parachute[2] (light, one accesibile handle, none/little steering, not intended for high freefall speeds) - gopro on ~wrist~ selfie-stick - long and stable freefall before pulling - before jumping, he opens the door and looks straight down a few times, exactly like skydivers spot the landing zone before jumping Basically I feel like I've watched an experienced skydiver on a planned jump more than a pilot surprised by an engine out. [1] http://scrisc.com/image/cache/data/m2aad/tn_zoom_obrazek_88-700x700_0.jpg http://scrisc.com/image/cache/data/m2aad/tn_zoom_obrazek_88-... [2] https://www.chutingstar.com/media/catalog/product/cache/dc97733eb80fca7b98ca9f338944f881/r/i/rigginginnovations_p124aviator_6.jpg https://www.chutingstar.com/media/catalog/product/cache/dc97...
- ZanyProgrammer 5y ago
  On the ground he sounds like he's faking how difficult of a go it is-I had to watch it with sound off because of all his complaining.
  - amelius 5y ago
    Yes, he says he needs water badly yet he's complaining loudly all the time. That's contradictory. If you need water and there is none, you better keep your mouth shut.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      That's not a core competency of YouTubers.
      - jcranmer 5y ago
        I know you're referring to the tendency of many Youtubers to not shut up, but every streamer I've seen has invariably had as part of their setup the "massive drink" in large part because incessant talking requires heavy liquid consumption. So I actually imagine most YouTubers are actually aware that talking is not the wisest idea in a dehydration scenario...
1270018080 5y ago
Biggest guilty before proven innocent aspect: He's a Youtuber.
chrononaut 5y ago
> "Please fly with a parachute" Do pilots of small aircraft consider this in practice? (As someone who doesn't fly, it's obviously an interesting thought experiment as a means to survive, but I would imagine most pilots are going to be looking to recover or land the aircraft, not bail out of it?)
- Rebelgecko 5y ago
  For some small airplanes (I think every one by Cirrus), they actually have a parachute for the entire aircraft
  - ZanyProgrammer 5y ago
    I don't think it's normal for the overwhelming majority of pilots who fly single engine propeller planes. The Cirrus is very much an exception. Given the older ages of many people who are private pilots, they probably shouldn't be parachuting regardless.
- azalemeth 5y ago
  No. Glider [sailplane] pilots routinely do, but only because of their habit of soaring together in thermals, and the increased risk of a mid-air collision. Larger and much newer (i.e. more expensive) general aviation aircraft sometimes have a "ballistic recovery system" fitted where the whole aircraft has a parachute -- Cirrus a/c are famous for this. Other than that, pilots dropping skydivers use them. And in some jurisdictions, aerobatics. And that's it. General aviation is about as safe as riding a motorbike. You're trained to not get into that situation in the first place -- it's a very fishy video for many different reasons. We plan for eventualities! Pilots assume that everything _will_ fail and ideally don't let themselves get into a position where a parachute is needed. I've been in a glider (ASK-21) under tow from a tug plane (a Piper Pawnee) where it lost an engine cylinder at exactly "the worst point" on the way up. The pilot waved us off immediately, and we both executed our well-practiced "eventualities" plan for that airfield, with no incident whatsoever. An investigation showed that the engine casing on the Pawnee had cracked, despite recent inspection.
- dpifke 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
paul7986 5y ago
TikTok is a cancer to society ... you see so many staged.. mean things pulled on innocent people either working.. shopping at a store, pranks, etc that i loathe most of it. Reels is the same and both pay creators for content like Youtube does. All such people should be made an example of get huge fines or do jail time for creating fake content that harms others for their financial gain or in this instance forces the FAA to spend money on investigation only to find it was staged.
mmaunder 5y ago
They should arrest him for littering.
jb1991 5y ago
I’m curious who is the person who supposedly shot footage of the plane from a distance as it was heading towards its crash. If he was in the air in the parachute, who was filming the plane from the ground?
- chrononaut 5y ago
  Do you have a timestamp for which part you're referring to? It looked like it was entirely recorded by GoPros attached to the air frame, the camera on his selfie-stick, or the GoPro on his wrist.
  - jb1991 5y ago
    I think I misinterpreted that part of the footage and the sister comment explains it.
- emilburzo 5y ago
  I suspect it's from the selfie-stick gopro and cropped with subject tracking
neom 5y ago
Reminds me of the David Lesh incident: https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/on-video-guy-ditches-plane-in-pacific-suspicions-run-rampant/ https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/on-video-guy-ditche...
micromacrofoot 5y ago
I watched the video and I'm no expert, but I'll be amazed if this guy didn't crash his plane for views (and maybe insurance fraud). This situation feels like the perfect disaster... almost like a low-budget Man vs Wild. I hope I'm wrong.
- shimonabi 5y ago
  Yeah, in the middle of the video I was expecting to see a hand to hand combat with a man in a bear costume.
  - nefitty 5y ago
    A tangent, but the movie Hardcore Henry is a first-person perspective action movie in that vein. Once I got over the initial motion sickness it was insanely riveting.
mmaunder 5y ago
Martha Lunken lost her pilots license at 78 years old for flying under a bridge. She had 14,000 hours, worked for the FAA as a safety manager and ran a flying school for 28 years. This guy is toast. https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2021/04/18/lunken-airport-faa-martha-jeremiah-morrow-bridge/7089271002/ https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2021/04/18/lunken-airp...
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  > She had 14,000 hours, worked for the FAA as a safety manager and ran a flying school for 28 years Sounds like the FAA correctly decided that she should have known better. Especially given her age, she should have been dotting every i and crossing every t, because everyone knows the FAA comes down like a pile of bricks on elderly pilots.
  - mmaunder 5y ago
    They do?
    - pc86 5y ago
      They might, but probably not for the reason(s) the GP is implying. I've definitely noticed a correlation between age and how quickly a pilot is to disregard safety, checklists, etc.
  - amelius 5y ago
    > ... worked for the FAA as a safety manager ... Sounds more like she was a liability.
    - aiisjustanif 5y ago
      Sounds on purpose.
  - jcrawfordor 5y ago
    The linked article is a little odd to me, this story is kind of famous as she's a bit of a celebrity in the aviation world for her accomplished instruction career. The way I've always heard it is that she was aware that her pilot's certificate was going to be revoked soon anyway due to her advanced age, and so she flew under the bridge well aware that there was a possibility her certificate would be revoked for it. AOPA's article supports this theory, it says that she did fight the revocation but quotes her saying that she knew it would likely happen.
temikus 5y ago
- Crashing an airplane - Recklessly endangering other people in the area (this was not far from established hiking trails) - Getting investigated by FAA All for barely 200k views on YouTube. Wow.
- walrus01 5y ago
  But it was all sponsored by ridge wallet, I'm sure that totally paid off. /s At least not sponsored by RAID SHADOW LEGENDS
- johnnyApplePRNG 5y ago
  Even hearing the synopsis, I don't even care to watch the video...
- missblit 5y ago
  His youtube channel really sets the scene... "I got stuck on a chairlift", "Skydive ends in police car", "A helicopter left me in the ocean", "I Brought My Dog Flying (Bad Idea)"... just on and on. In the don't bring your dog flying one he starts with "this story may or may not be true", mentions that his gopro coincidentally didn't capture the critical moments, then talks about nearly crashing during takeoff and all his electronics going out and his dog panicking. So of course he alledgedly continued on without navigation into a no-fly zone instead of y'know turning around and landing. I'm not totally 100% convinced the stuff is all fake, but at the very least he probably shouldn't be flying...
  - rossjudson 5y ago
    I'd say that if he stays on the same path, we won't need to concerned for much longer. Compounding risks have a way of converging on expected outcomes, over time.
- libria 5y ago
  2100 likes & no dislikes, though. Looks like the people have spoken!
  - 5y ago
umvi 5y ago
Even if it is staged/fake... he only got 200k views out of it, so it wouldn't have even been worth the cost of the plane
- Digory 5y ago
  Insurance.
  - gruez 5y ago
    but if it's an insurance scam why bother filming it? Surely the investigation/evidence risk isn't worth 200k views?
    - Digory 5y ago
      If you think you’re good enough to fool 200k YouTube detectives, I imagine you think you’re good enough to get it past the average insurance adjuster. I think this guy’s risk-reward calculations are probably off by a few standard deviations.
- usefulcat 5y ago
  Did he even own the plane?
  - ksherlock 5y ago
    The airplane is registered with the FAA under someone else's name.
- reidjs 5y ago
  For some people, notoriety/fame is more important than money. Now he has a one-up story for parties. Instead of a rich nobody, now he's someone who survived a plane crash.
- rambambram 5y ago
  Might want to check his other videos. Some have millions of views.
KaiserPro 5y ago
My dad used a fly a cesna 172 when I was a kid. So I've heard many stories from his pilot friends about losing engines, landing in fields and the like. It happens quite a lot, apparently. A few things strike me: o why was he wobbling the yoke so much forwards and backwards, that costs you speed, and knackers your glide efficiency. o Why wasn't he looking for landing sites (he was up really high, like 2k+ above the mountain top), edit: see comment daughter, decent is measured in feet per minute, unfeathered prop will cause drag, nailing your glide ratio so not 10 minutes glide time before action was needed o why didn't he set his glide path up properly, to give him time to think? o why isn't he looking at the checklist for engine failure? (my dad had one in the middle) I suspect he might not have one o Did he send a distress signal? o where was the attempt to restart the engine (granted it might not be young enough to have a starter, but he had the height to spin the prop) Finally, the other thing that gets me, is that the door is open before the engine fails. which either means that he's expecting the failure (checklists are your friend here) so why wasn't he lining up/searching for a river bed for landing?
- verytrivial 5y ago
  o Why did he hike to the crash site to where all the GoPro memory cards were, and where all the flight controls were still set to where they were when he baile---Ooooh. Yeah. Go directly to jail. Do not pass GO.
  - mizzao 5y ago
    Can you elaborate on the jail part?
    - verytrivial 5y ago
      Well, up-front he says he reported the crash. If he said to the FAA / NTSB "I deliberately flew on an empty tank so I could jump out for YouTube views" he's probably only going to lose his license, otherwise it's going to be his liberty.
- sokoloff 5y ago
bartread 5y ago
I mean, he literally says that he immediately reported the crash to the FAA and NTSB at the beginning of the video. It's certainly both fascinating and terrifying to watch, but wouldn't the FAA investigate, regardless of whether or not the crash was "controversial", whatever that actually means in the context of this incident (disclaimer: not a pilot)? Also, isn't the "controversy" here basically a bunch of armchair critics/commenters?
jrootabega 5y ago
Seems like a stunt on MTVs Jackass.
xzcvczx 5y ago
i am not a pilot but i am a skydiver so i am not going to comment on what he did/didn't do to keep the plane in the air. i watched the video and the one thing that makes it slightly more believable for me is the headset still on in (part of) freefall. it could easily cause problems on opening, and wouldn't be too suspicious to remove it if you were getting out planned or unplanned.
natch 5y ago
Repeated “oh my gosh” and “oh my godsh“ came off as the biggest fakey red flags here. Clear sign it was a performance; he was more worried about offending some sensitive people than he was actually stressed out.
- shoo 5y ago
  youtube demonetizes videos that use language that advertisers do not wish to be associated with. so, arguably less about offending viewers and more about keeping the advertising revenues flowing
  - avs733 5y ago
    Which would totally be my focus if I was actually experiencing an in flight emergency as a pilot
- gmiller123456 5y ago
  He has plenty of places where he bleeps himself, so I don't think this really counts for much. I do this type of thing often myself, saying "whoops", or "Martha Faulker" even when no one is around.
stevesearer 5y ago
Oddly enough, I'm familiar with the wilderness where the plane crashed and based on the video am pretty confident I know where the crash site was. Am now interested in hiking out to it sometime too. In the case that this was real, it is interesting to me to see just how close he was to trails and camps without knowing it where he might have been able to better assess his situation and get his bearings.
- k8sToGo 5y ago
  It boggles my mind why he recommends a parachute but no offline maps on the phone. Still I think this entire thing is staged
- umpalumpaaa 5y ago
  Shortly after the engine went off you could see roads from the plane…
- scruple 5y ago
  Is that Hurricane Deck underneath when he bails? Haven't been up there for a while.
  - stevesearer 5y ago
    Yeah, hurricane deck trail looks like maybe .25mi uphill away from where the plane ends up. Access would be tough in general, plus there is a road closure right now making the trek even longer.
arch-ninja 5y ago
This guy sounds like he's fishing for attention, the phrase "I didn't think I would have the courage to share..." is something 10-year-olds think up for attention. It drips vanity and a covered ego the size of the Hindenburg.
- ShamelessC 5y ago
  Apparently it's working. Since the whole "dream cheated @ minecraft" drama - it's clear that there aren't really any consequences for lying to millions of people and in fact, you might even get your own little fanbase defending you. The video is sponsored by the way.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    Lying to the FAA on other hand does come with consequences.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- smcl 5y ago
  You picked up the same thing I did. I'm not sure what exactly in this sentence does it, but warning lights in the "this person is lying to me" section of my brain started flashing.
rdiddly 5y ago
Everybody's got questions and suspicions, but here's my rather subtle one: If you're editing dramatic video footage for YouTube, why exclude the exciting moment when the engine suddenly quits? Why edit out the suspense of your repeated attempts to restart the engine? Why omit the drama of your repeated radio calls? I think if you're a YouTube narcissist, you leave everything in that attracts attention and views. Now of course maybe if your ego is especially fragile, you edit out anything that makes you look bad. (Bad in your own opinion, mind you. There were numerous things left in that make him look bad in my opinion, but I digress.) So maybe he thought he sounded panicky on the radio, and maybe he thought he looked inept trying to restart the engine (or maybe he was too dumb to try either of those), but that still leaves the moment the engine quits - why leave that out? Now you know what they say about assume: it puts U between me and some ass. Which I don't appreciate. But nonetheless I assume that moment is not shown from the cockpit camera because he killed the engine. And if he killed the engine, he probably never tried to restart it, and never made any radio calls. It's kind of like when your cell phone is turned off all day, on the same day your spouse happens to get murdered. Nobody can triangulate & prove you were at the crime scene... but.........
- vl 5y ago
  Trivial explanation is that cameras were not running and he started them when he decided to ditch.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- edoceo 5y ago
  I've always heard assume makes and Ass out of U and Me - yours is good too, thank you, imma use it.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Okay, but if he’s faking the video and the most believable video would show the part where the engine stops, then why wouldn’t he include that in the fake video?
  - 5y ago
rndmind 5y ago
savant_penguin 5y ago
Is it just me or he speaks of flying with a parachute in just like many vegans talking about being vegans? The tone is so similar
stonepresto 5y ago
Browsing this guys YouTube video titles reads like a decent into madness… culminating in “I crashed my plane”.
geocrasher 5y ago
I couldn't stand to watch more than a couple minutes of this video. There are several clear landing areas within gliding distance, and in such gorgeous conditions he could probably could have hooked a couple thermals in such a light plane. This was a setup for YouTube, and he deserves whatever the FAA throws at him.
SteveGerencser 5y ago
I grew up flying a homebuilt Taylorcraft. There is no way I would have gotten out of that plane at that altitude. Those things will glide forever and can land on almost nothing. One of the biggest problems they have for new pilots is that they really want to just float and you end up using far more runway than you actually need. It's possible he's just a new pilot and panicked when the engine went out and would have rather relied on his skill as a skydiver rather than his skill as a pilot. But even the plane looks like it circled and tried to land in the river without him. Just bad all the way around. At the very least he needs to lose his license.
lisper 5y ago
Private pilot here. A lot of people have remarked on the lack of a mayday call. It's not clear whether that plane had a radio. Many aircraft of that type don't. That said, I see a lot of smoking guns: 1. He doesn't do any of the normal engine-out procedures. In particular, he does not turn the plane. He makes no attempt to try to find a safe landing site, which was pretty clearly available on the dry river bed. The plane he was flying is specifically designed to land in places like that. Even if he wasn't able to land, turning around would have placed him closer to civilization before he bailed out, but he clearly didn't even try. 2. His reaction when the engine quits is very heavy on profanities and lamenting the direness of the situation, and completely devoid of troubleshooting or planning the best course of action. Both of his hands can be seen on the yoke, so he's not trimming for best glide, checking the mags, checking the fuel selector. At best he is a completely incompetent pilot. 3. He is an accomplished skydiver flying a controllable skydiving chute (not an emergency chute). He could have put that chute down wherever he chose, but instead of landing on clear flat terrain (in the riverbed) he chose to land in the brush on the mountainside. That was either the most incredibly stupid decision anyone has ever made in an emergency situation, or part of a deliberate plan. I don't see any other possibilities. 4. The fact that he's able to get a shot of the plane flying below him also looks mighty hinky. He spent a lot of time in free-fall. For the plane to end up underneath him like that would be an incredible coincidence. Indeed, being able to hike to the crash site is mighty suspicious, even leaving aside the highly questionable decision-making required to even attempt it. [UPDATE] Also this video [1] where he spends a day at an airport trying to scam a free flight off someone by presenting himself as someone who has never had the opportunity to fly despite the fact that he is himself a pilot. This indicates that it is very much in character for him to try to deceive people for the sake of YT views. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWoEv0t5xGc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWoEv0t5xGc
- k3lsi3r 5y ago
  > 3. He is an accomplished skydiver flying a controllable skydiving chute (not an emergency chute). He could have put that chute down wherever he chose, but instead of landing on clear flat terrain (in the riverbed) he chose to land in the brush on the mountainside. That was either the most incredibly stupid decision anyone has ever made in an emergency situation, or part of a deliberate plan. I don't see any other possibilities. Yeah, this one seemed really silly. There is even a large open field at 5:36 pretty close to where he chose to "crash" land. Maybe not completely level, but as you said, many other options.
bagels 5y ago
The door went from closed to open before the engine went out. I'm not saying that's proof it was a stunt, but it sure is strange.
- pageandrew 5y ago
  "Open the door" is not on the engine out checklist, its on the forced landing checklist, which comes after all engine restart options are exhausted. He didn't run any items on the engine-out checklist. He went straight to skydiving. I don't think any pilot that managed to pass their checkride would neglect running a single diagnostic or attempted restart checklist item. This had to be intentional.
  - bagels 5y ago
    Yes, my point though is that the door was opened before the engine went out. It might've been on his "before you have an engine out" checklist.
    - pageandrew 5y ago
      Its on his "get YouTube views" checklist
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
t8e56vd4ih 5y ago
why is this interesting to official agencies? because stuff insurance payout? i mean it's his plane. why care? why the response on YouTube?
- pageandrew 5y ago
  It is completely reckless to ditch an aircraft if other options are available. The chances are low, but it could have hit someone or caused a fire.
  - t8e56vd4ih 5y ago
    why would he do it intentionally, though. isn't an airplane more expensive then what he can expect to earn with that clip on YouTube?
    - pageandrew 5y ago
      He probably has insurance on the aircraft, so the YouTube earnings + increased publicity + insurance payout could make such a stunt profitable.
    - dghlsakjg 5y ago
      I don't know what a youtube video earns, but it is entirely possible to find a clapped out old taylorcraft or equivalent for $10-15k. I think that breaking even is entirely impossible. WHistlinDiesel destroyed an almost identical airplane in a video...
      - bagels 5y ago
        Yes, but he only endangered his crew, thankfully.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
pageandrew 5y ago
I'm a private pilot and I regularly fly aircraft similar to the one in the video. Engines can fail for any number of reasons, but catastrophic engine failure is exceedingly rare, and most of the time an engine stoppage is going to be something that can be corrected easily, such as fuel starvation (maybe failure to switch fuel tanks?), or a misconfigured fuel mixture, or a fried magneto. As student pilots, we train extensively for engine-out scenarios by running through checklists to increase glide distance, diagnose the problem, and hopefully restart the engine. At the very least, we evaluate all options. The first thing you are trained to do in an engine-out is to pitch the aircraft for best glide speed, and you don't even see him do that in the video. The prop stops spinning and he immediately opens the door. Bailing from the aircraft was the first thing he thought of doing, and that is the complete opposite of what every pilot is trained to do. I can't emphasize enough how much the engine-out checklist is drilled into you during training. Any qualified pilot is going to exercise some of those options unless their intention is in fact to bail from the aircraft.
- bagels 5y ago
  The video is edited, so it's possible that some of those things were cut, but I don't think they actually were.
  - can16358p 5y ago
    Yup. As he was explaining all the details for pretty much everything else, I'd also expect him to have him go over the emergency procedures/checklist on the video before bailing out.
- BbzzbB 5y ago
  >The prop stops spinning and he immediately opens the door. I'm no pilot (student or otherwise), but as a comment in OP's link points out, his door is cracked open before the engine shuts down. At 2:35 we see it properly closed (as a layman would expect from someone sitting in a chair in the sky). At 2:37-42 in the establishing shot and the shot of the engine shutting down, it is clearly cracked open. As tho he was peaking out to see the terrain prior to killing his engine, like he does right after in the video. That alone makes it... suspicious. You'd think he might have spread his friend's ashes just before as an explanation, but considering how he used said ashes as a video prop, I'd expect him to include that shot in if he'd done it. Does a small plane pilot have any reason to open the door other than anticipating a jump? Than there's the whole parachute thing, which is further notable as you don't see him wearing any in his other flight videos.
histriosum 5y ago
Private pilot here. Posting this because I haven't the regulation mentioned, and because several folks have made it sound like bailing out of a still-flyable airplane isn't against regulation. Among the several other regs that the FAA will eventually cite when they pull his ticket (hopefully forever), 14 CFR 91.119 paragraph (a) is compelling here IMHO. (asterisks around my emphasis): § 91.119 Minimum safe altitudes: General. Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes: (a) Anywhere. An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing *without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface*.
- FabHK 5y ago
  He was above a safe altitude while operating the airplane though, and not operating it when it was below a safe altitude.
  - histriosum 5y ago
    In order for that argument to make sense, you'd have to make the logical leap that jumping out of the perfectly flyable airplane ceases his responsibility for operating the aircraft. That doesn't seem reasonable, and I doubt any judge would think so...
    - kayfox 5y ago
      AFAIK as PIC you are still responsible for the safe operation of the aircraft even if you bail out of it.
      - histriosum 5y ago
        Yep, absolutely 100%.
holoduke 5y ago
A YouTube video in this genre where there is a little questionmark whether it's real or not, is unfortunately almost always fake. How is it possible that you jump from a plane, descent at least for 5 to 10 seconds, deploy parachute and then make a shot of the airplane 1000 feet below, who made a full 360 turn, but during the shot flying straight, at almost the same altitude as where the engine problems started.
gromitss 5y ago
dijonman2 5y ago
I don’t see any tail number on the aircraft for identification. There is no fire which means likely no fuel. Could have been the reason for the engine failure but could also indicate planned activity. Who knows? The FAA will find out, they don’t fuck around.
dghlsakjg 5y ago
I'm a pilot and a paraglider. I own an emergency chute via my paragliding kit. I fly an experimental plane powered by a much less reliable engine than what this man had. My airframe has had an in air engine failure, and forced landing on a small road, although I wasn't the pilot. I have never once thought about bringing my reserve parachute with me when piloting my plane. I was trained to land the plane without power, as are all pilots. I don't know any pilots who have had a simple engine out that wish they would have bailed out. I know pilots who are skydivers and they don't wear their chutes. The ONLY pilots that I know of that wear chutes are aerobatic pilots who do high risk maneuvers. Absolutely none of them wear one that looks like a skydiving rig because it is VERY uncomfortable to be in a cramped cockpit wearing what is essentially a bulky backpack. In the video you can see just how cramped he is in that plane because he has a chute on.
- topherPedersen 5y ago
  At the dropzone the pilots usually wear emergency bailout parachutes. But yeah you're right, a skydiving rig would be really uncomfortable to wear flying. It looks like he was planning to jump before he ever took off to me. I've never seen anyone pilot an aircraft wearing a skydiving rig.
  - dghlsakjg 5y ago
    I recall now that some aircraft types are modified in a way that the FAA requires the pilots to wear a chute. But as you pointed out, they don't wear a full blown skydiving rig.
- nikitaga 5y ago
  If you or anyone else ever decides to bring your paragliding reserve onboard an airplane, be sure to check its specs first. Paragliding reserves are optimized for fast deployment at low airspeed, whereas deployment at airplane flight speeds needs a slower deployment sequence to avoid excessive G load on both the parachute and yourself. For extra safety, getting a whole-airplane ballistic recovery parachute is a much better choice, although those are not foolproof either – installation must be done properly, and deployment is not guaranteed to succeed if your plane is in pieces by the time you need it, e.g. from structural failure or a midair collision.
topherPedersen 5y ago
As a skydiver, I think I noticed some stuff from the video that looks pretty fishy. Why is he flying with a skydiving rig on? Normally pilots where emergency parachutes with only one parachute which are made to be worn comfortably while flying. He's wearing a skydiving rig in the video which would be very uncomfortable to wear while flying an aircraft. I could be wrong, but that sort of makes it look like he was planning to jump before he ever took off.
DrScump 5y ago
The original on YouTube credits Ridge wallets as a sponsor (complete with referral link spam), so that's one company I'm never patronizing.
TheDudeMan 5y ago
If he doesn't post the full unedited videos, then he's probably hiding something.
beaker52 5y ago
I know this is extremely narrow but I think there's something in it: the way he says "I'm over the mountains and I have a [fricking] engine out" sets off my Spidey sense. This appears to justify the need to jump before pointing out the problem. That's not your reaction in an emergency. If you're making YouTube content then surely you want to show the sheer terror that you faced, not the calm justification for your bailing out. The problem is that your engine is out. Your response is supposed to be "[Frick], my engine is out and I can't see anywhere to land - this is concerning". Not "I'm over the mountains and my engine is out" suggesting that there is only one outcome. I don't know much about aviation, but his language and attitude throughout the video suggests to me that he's prepped to ditch the plane. I'm running off gut instinct here but it's always served me pretty well.
fnord77 5y ago
take the tiktok plane crash challenge !
scarier 5y ago
If anyone's interested in watching videos of genuine emergencies in light aircraft, Elliot Seguin (https://www.youtube.com/c/utopiasnow https://www.youtube.com/c/utopiasnow) has some fantastic ones.
throwaway73838 5y ago
No fire = no fuel? Easy way to have an engine failure
feupan 5y ago
So many people are suspicious that he has so many cameras and footage. Maybe that’s because he’s a YouTuber and documenting a flight was his exact purpose. There are many reasons to doubt this, but cameras aren’t one.
- aembleton 5y ago
  Going directly to the crash site to collect footage seems suspicious though.
bluehorseray 5y ago
Someone on youtube also pointed out that the day this occurred just so happens to be the 50th anniversary of DB Cooper's jump (November 24, 1971). For some reason I don't think that's a coincidence.
polynomial 5y ago
YT really pays more out for a video with 250k views than the cost of that sweet vintage plane?!?
- bagels 5y ago
  No, they don't. A rule of thumb I've seen is about $4/1000 views. Not sure about the brand sponsors though.
rkagerer 5y ago
People who do stupid things like this for attention really piss me off.
booleandilemma 5y ago
Only about 240,000 views. I wonder if he still thinks it's worth the fine / loss of pilot's license / jail time for reckless endangerment. Also, a selfie stick, really? He might as well have had a camera crew filming his little stunt.
whyenot 5y ago
This whole discussion reminds me of Reddit's imfamous /r/findbostonbombers. Humans seem to have this need to find and punish cheaters (see for example some of the experiments by Cosmides and Tooby). Sometimes we get things wrong. (we did it HN! Take that lamestrean media) https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/4f340r/where_did_we_did_it_reddit_come_from/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/4f340r/where_...
- aaron695 5y ago
  [dead]
aksss 5y ago
So... did the ridge wallet survive?
jwithington 5y ago
People really out here writing articles on Christmas
replwoacause 5y ago
I don't think I could make a faker video if I tried.
e-clinton 5y ago
Don’t think it was staged, but I could see him making questionable decisions. He seems to put very little effort into finding a spot to land. That’s probably because he had the shoot
jacquesm 5y ago
This reminds me of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RF9UVwWM9E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RF9UVwWM9E does anybody know how that ended, and if it turned out it was staged?
tverbeure 5y ago
This is the location above which he jumped: https://goo.gl/maps/jjqRoC4pyCzNYXDN8 https://goo.gl/maps/jjqRoC4pyCzNYXDN8. You can match the landscape features with the video here: https://youtu.be/vbYszLNZxhM?t=251 https://youtu.be/vbYszLNZxhM?t=251. He doesn't show it on the video (coincidence, of course!), but he could easily have glided ~5 miles south-west to some wineries.
SCAQTony 5y ago
His body has a blurred outline around it as he exits the plane.
diebeforei485 5y ago
Most pilots would run a checklist for an engine out situation. Maybe the video skipped over this because it's not raw footage, but it does seem a bit suspicious.
roeles 5y ago
For comparison, here is a video of a YAK-50 with an engine failure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrR8pnMgMiE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrR8pnMgMiE
josefx 5y ago
~2000 upvotes on the video, no way there is anything wrong with its content. Thank YouTube for providing such a great UI. /s

540 points by nostromo 5y ago

eCa 5y ago

Really looking forward to commentary from Mentour and blancolirio on this. Judging from Mentour’s comment on the video I think it’s an understatement to say that he thinks it is correct for the FAA to investigate...

Laforet 5y ago
Just wanna chime in and say that Mentour has been doing a great job with his videos. There is a lot of low effort air crash videos on YouTube that does not do much more than reading off the official report or the script of an ACI episode. Mentour is one of the few that goes beyond that by injecting actual professional insight into the events.
geocrasher 5y ago
I actually emailed this to blancolirio and ask him to cover it. He's a great commentator.
LinuxBender 5y ago
Also "Probable Cause: Dan Gryder" He can be a little harsh on people but usually for good reason.

idatum 5y ago

HN will feed more clicks, even in good faith to question this video. The company behind that stupid wallet thing he's promoting is probably happy, at least for now. And GOOG won't pull this, at least for now. Fact checkers? lol What a f'd up online world. EDIT: oh, and it was NordicTrack that bought the ad before I could watch the video.

daveslash 5y ago

This might be off topic, but can you really just spread human remains willy-nilly like that? I know people do it, but from what I understand, you're not supposed to. Sure, it may "just be ashes", but it's human remains nonetheless. We cremated my late father in law here in California, and first we wanted to spread his ashes at sea, then we thought we wanted to have them interred, then we thought maybe we'd hold onto them. Every time we changed our minds we had to update our permit for human remains. While I think we can all probably agree that spreading a handful of ashes in the wilderness is not really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, legally speaking, would you want to publicize that?

coryfklein 5y ago

I'm impressed how quickly folks here are able to arrive at the most certain conclusion that this was staged! While that explanation seems possible (and not unlikely), I keep coming back to Hanlon's Razor: > Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. The individual seems to have decent skills at YouTube'ing and probably paragliding, but most of the video seems easily explained by him simply being a stupid pilot. Let me spin an alternative narrative and you compare it to the narrative of malicious intent to see whether one is more obviously true than the other. Amateur pilot YouTuber has invested money in several GoPros. Costs him nothing to mount them all over the airplane for some cool footage on the way. The engine stops midflight. The pilot tries a few things (cut from the video so he doesn't look incompetent to his subscribers), but he hasn't flown in a while and has forgotten what he's supposed to do in this scenario. "Was there an acronym? ABC: abort, blame, no that's not it. GLO: Glide, Land, Observe?" The tiny plane has no radio so he can't phone a friend for help. Could he land on that stream bed down there? Possibly... "Dammit, I might be skilled enough to land this, but I have spent a gajillion hours live-streaming my skydives recently and THAT I definitely know how to do." Pilot grabs the GoPro off the dashboard just like he did on his last 10 skydives and jumps out of the plane. In his panicked state of mind, he doesn't realise that he should pull the chute ASAP and he falls back on his skydiving experience and freefalls for a decent amount of time before thinking to pull the chute. Like the terrible pilot he is, he didn't spend much time looking at the route of his flight plans and he doesn't know where he is. He has a bag of gear in the plane, so he follows the plane to where it crashes in hopes of getting his water bottle, even though it means he has to land in the brambles. Unsurprisingly, he can't locate his gear but he's able to escape with only some scratches. He barely escaped a death caused by his stupidity, but maybe he can salvage this difficult situation with a well edited YouTube video... Now some of you might say that this is a just-so story crafted to spin a particular narrative, but how is that different from all the other stories here portraying him as a well-trained pilot and ascribing all sorts of other characteristics to him? Honestly I won't be surprised whichever direction the FAA investigation comes back, but I am surprised at how certain all the "skeptics" here are of the facts they're able to extract from such a heavily edited video.

mito88 5y ago

he resembles that youtuber who was dumped by the love of his life...

mito88 5y ago
https://youtu.be/0zpVfyEw6nU https://youtu.be/0zpVfyEw6nU

shockeychap 5y ago

The real question is, do you think “Ridge Wallet” will continue to sponsor him?

JudasGoat 5y ago

Personally I was sad when I read that the airplane was made in 1939. To survive all that time just to be wrecked for views, so wasteful.

K0balt 5y ago

I love the obviously disconnected fuel line with the fuel selector valve bobbing around in plain view. As a pilot, this guy did nothing pilot-like in response to the engine out, even making an effort to get the engine to STOP turning over by intentionally reducing airspeed to near stall. There were suitable landing strips within range at his altitude if you look at the map( the view of the river pinpoints his location). Also, he was going paragliding but did not bring his paragliding gear? Not his plane either, he left his plane at the airport he picked this one up at? This was an intentional act 110%. The FAA will pull his ticket. He’s an idiot. Hopefully there’s insurance involved so he can go to jail too.

giarc 5y ago

I only watched about the first half of the video, but I understand there is controversy whether this was an accident or a planned wreck. If so, I think there is an easy answer, he should just release the footage of when the engine started to fail. There should be a good chunk of time where he is trying to restart, should also be genuine surprise when that happened and not a shot of him shutting the engine down. The youtube video (or at least the first half) didn't include that, only cut to a point where he has obviously decided to jump. He may claim to have turned off the gopro on the dash, but there was a gopro on the left wing that was focused on the cockpit that should show his reaction.

cdiamand 5y ago
Came here to say this. Pilots are drilled to work an extensive engine-out checklist during training. In this situation, the pilot had what seemed like a significant amount of altitude (time) to work the problem.
- planesceptic 5y ago
  So, I’m a complete ignorant when it comes to planes, but I do have the habit of giving folks BOTD and so I was wondering a few things: 1. How experienced a pilot is this man? Is he a very junior novice or experienced such that this should be a non-factor. 2. I see lots of folks mentioned hardwares in the comments - would a vintage craft (80+ years) be lacking good maintenance or equipment? All in all I think he needs to release full footage otherwise he isn’t actually helping anyone as he claims to hope to. At the same time I see lots of armchair quarterbacking on what should have happened - but having been in high stress situations (fist, knife, and gun fights) in my life your reactions are never what you expect from the comfort of a computer chair. I’ve also witnessed as a software engineer very “senior” folks with loss of experience make amateur choices in no-stress situations - I cannot imagine the “oh shit this plane is going down” stress. Wish someone would have a good layman explanation instead of showing off their personal knowledge.
  - Syonyk 5y ago
    > 1. How experienced a pilot is this man? Is he a very junior novice or experienced such that this should be a non-factor. Shouldn't matter. By the time the FAA examiner gives you a pilot's license, they should be convinced that you can safely handle aviation, to include engine failures. But unless the airplane is literally coming apart around you, bailing out of a light airplane is almost always the wrong answer. They land fairly slow, especially an old T-craft, and it doesn't take very many feet of deceleration room for it to be something you walk away from. I'm not familiar with the particular accident and circumstances, but nothing I've seen in the avweb writeup makes it look very good. And I generally suspect YouTube "pilots" are mostly in it for the views, and nothing sells views like a crash. As far as "the engine has quit" stress, as long as the rest of the airplane is in good shape, it's still a perfectly good airplane. And pilots regularly train (at least, should...) for engine out landings. It's a common event in training - you get somewhere near the airport, the instructor pulls the throttle back and says, "Your engine quit." I hate to say it's not a big deal, because if it quits for real, you'll certainly be sweating, but a general aviation airplane doesn't fall out of the sky if the engine quits.

colechristensen 5y ago

The FAA/NTSB investigates basically every crash, they do a good job. I doubt they will react kindly to crashing on purpose for views.

redis_mlc 5y ago
> The FAA/NTSB investigates basically every crash No. The NTSB investigates significant accidents (either commercial operations or passengers involved.) There's an average of 400 GA accidents per year, so about one a day. If two CFIs climb into a Piper and crash, it probably won't be investigated. Add a passenger, then the NTSB gets interested. Source: commercially-rated airplane pilot.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  The NTSB website says: "The National Transportation Safety Board is an independent Federal agency charged by Congress with investigating every civil aviation accident in the United States and significant accidents in other modes of transportation – railroad, highway, marine and pipeline." So if the NTSB is not investigating every civil aviation crash, then they are failing in their congressional mandate. If you have evidence of this, you should probably contact your congress person or a newspaper with the details.
  - galago 5y ago
    I wonder how they define a "civil aviation accident"? In places like Alaska, people routinely land at sites which are not airports. If someone has a hard landing, there could be some damage to the aircraft with no injuries. Do they investigate every one of those? It might be there are a lot of minor "accidents" that fall into grey areas. I don't know if that's the case, I'm actually curious if anyone knows.
    - imoverclocked 5y ago
      That sounds like an incident, not an accident. They are treated differently. > [1] Aircraft accident means an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and all such persons have disembarked, and in which any person suffers death or serious injury, or in which the aircraft receives substantial damage. Substantial damage is then defined as: > Substantial damage means damage or failure which adversely affects the structural strength, performance, or flight characteristics of the aircraft, and which would normally require major repair or replacement of the affected component. Engine failure or damage limited to an engine if only one engine fails or is damaged, bent fairings or cowling, dented skin, small punctured holes in the skin or fabric, ground damage to rotor or propeller blades, and damage to landing gear, wheels, tires, flaps, engine accessories, brakes, or wingtips are not considered substantial damage for the purpose of this part. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/830.2 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/830.2

thrill 5y ago

That aircraft could land on a driveway, much less the miles of dirt roads visible all around.

Syonyk 5y ago
Seriously. Your average dirt road is probably comparable to some of the runways it used to fly off when it was new.

runjake 5y ago

A lot of mistakes were made. The FAA is investigating and I'm sure they will come to a sound conclusion. This is the most I can say, based on the footage I've watched. I cannot speak to his intent. Anything more is just Internet Pile-On, and the Internet can use less of that.

quasarj 5y ago
Thank you. People are so full of shit, thinking they can spot anything as being fake.. or knowing his intentions. There just isn't enough information yet.
Dylan16807 5y ago
I don't think it's wrong to talk about this rather than sit in complete silence until the FAA releases a report.
- planesceptic 5y ago
  I agree, but the comments are all either “how dare he place an ad in his video (contractual, perhaps?)” to “I would never” There isn’t much meat on the bone, to a layman at least.
mmaunder 5y ago
Not in this case. /r/flying put this idiocy on the map. FAA is an imperfect organization. Check out some of the discussions around pilots masking mental health issues to maintain medical status.
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  What I’ve heard from a friend is: you should have a really good general practitioner, and a good doctor who certifies you, and they must never, ever communicate with or even be aware of each other. (I do not study airplane.)
gmiller123456 5y ago
The FAA/NTSB is pretty good at determining why a plane crashed, not so much on judging people's intentions, that's usually left to a jury.

emilburzo 5y ago

There's definitely some suspicious stuff going on: - gave up waaaay too early compared to any pilot I've seen with an engine out - skydiving rig[1] (bulky, more/less easy to reach handles, steerable) instead of safety parachute[2] (light, one accesibile handle, none/little steering, not intended for high freefall speeds) - gopro on ~wrist~ selfie-stick - long and stable freefall before pulling - before jumping, he opens the door and looks straight down a few times, exactly like skydivers spot the landing zone before jumping Basically I feel like I've watched an experienced skydiver on a planned jump more than a pilot surprised by an engine out. [1] http://scrisc.com/image/cache/data/m2aad/tn_zoom_obrazek_88-700x700_0.jpg http://scrisc.com/image/cache/data/m2aad/tn_zoom_obrazek_88-... [2] https://www.chutingstar.com/media/catalog/product/cache/dc97733eb80fca7b98ca9f338944f881/r/i/rigginginnovations_p124aviator_6.jpg https://www.chutingstar.com/media/catalog/product/cache/dc97...

ZanyProgrammer 5y ago
On the ground he sounds like he's faking how difficult of a go it is-I had to watch it with sound off because of all his complaining.
- amelius 5y ago
  Yes, he says he needs water badly yet he's complaining loudly all the time. That's contradictory. If you need water and there is none, you better keep your mouth shut.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    That's not a core competency of YouTubers.
    - jcranmer 5y ago
      I know you're referring to the tendency of many Youtubers to not shut up, but every streamer I've seen has invariably had as part of their setup the "massive drink" in large part because incessant talking requires heavy liquid consumption. So I actually imagine most YouTubers are actually aware that talking is not the wisest idea in a dehydration scenario...

1270018080 5y ago

Biggest guilty before proven innocent aspect: He's a Youtuber.

chrononaut 5y ago

> "Please fly with a parachute" Do pilots of small aircraft consider this in practice? (As someone who doesn't fly, it's obviously an interesting thought experiment as a means to survive, but I would imagine most pilots are going to be looking to recover or land the aircraft, not bail out of it?)

Rebelgecko 5y ago
For some small airplanes (I think every one by Cirrus), they actually have a parachute for the entire aircraft
- ZanyProgrammer 5y ago
  I don't think it's normal for the overwhelming majority of pilots who fly single engine propeller planes. The Cirrus is very much an exception. Given the older ages of many people who are private pilots, they probably shouldn't be parachuting regardless.
azalemeth 5y ago
No. Glider [sailplane] pilots routinely do, but only because of their habit of soaring together in thermals, and the increased risk of a mid-air collision. Larger and much newer (i.e. more expensive) general aviation aircraft sometimes have a "ballistic recovery system" fitted where the whole aircraft has a parachute -- Cirrus a/c are famous for this. Other than that, pilots dropping skydivers use them. And in some jurisdictions, aerobatics. And that's it. General aviation is about as safe as riding a motorbike. You're trained to not get into that situation in the first place -- it's a very fishy video for many different reasons. We plan for eventualities! Pilots assume that everything _will_ fail and ideally don't let themselves get into a position where a parachute is needed. I've been in a glider (ASK-21) under tow from a tug plane (a Piper Pawnee) where it lost an engine cylinder at exactly "the worst point" on the way up. The pilot waved us off immediately, and we both executed our well-practiced "eventualities" plan for that airfield, with no incident whatsoever. An investigation showed that the engine casing on the Pawnee had cracked, despite recent inspection.
dpifke 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

paul7986 5y ago

TikTok is a cancer to society ... you see so many staged.. mean things pulled on innocent people either working.. shopping at a store, pranks, etc that i loathe most of it. Reels is the same and both pay creators for content like Youtube does. All such people should be made an example of get huge fines or do jail time for creating fake content that harms others for their financial gain or in this instance forces the FAA to spend money on investigation only to find it was staged.

mmaunder 5y ago

They should arrest him for littering.

jb1991 5y ago

I’m curious who is the person who supposedly shot footage of the plane from a distance as it was heading towards its crash. If he was in the air in the parachute, who was filming the plane from the ground?

chrononaut 5y ago
Do you have a timestamp for which part you're referring to? It looked like it was entirely recorded by GoPros attached to the air frame, the camera on his selfie-stick, or the GoPro on his wrist.
- jb1991 5y ago
  I think I misinterpreted that part of the footage and the sister comment explains it.
emilburzo 5y ago
I suspect it's from the selfie-stick gopro and cropped with subject tracking

neom 5y ago

Reminds me of the David Lesh incident: https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/on-video-guy-ditches-plane-in-pacific-suspicions-run-rampant/ https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/on-video-guy-ditche...

micromacrofoot 5y ago

I watched the video and I'm no expert, but I'll be amazed if this guy didn't crash his plane for views (and maybe insurance fraud). This situation feels like the perfect disaster... almost like a low-budget Man vs Wild. I hope I'm wrong.

shimonabi 5y ago
Yeah, in the middle of the video I was expecting to see a hand to hand combat with a man in a bear costume.
- nefitty 5y ago
  A tangent, but the movie Hardcore Henry is a first-person perspective action movie in that vein. Once I got over the initial motion sickness it was insanely riveting.

mmaunder 5y ago

Martha Lunken lost her pilots license at 78 years old for flying under a bridge. She had 14,000 hours, worked for the FAA as a safety manager and ran a flying school for 28 years. This guy is toast. https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2021/04/18/lunken-airport-faa-martha-jeremiah-morrow-bridge/7089271002/ https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2021/04/18/lunken-airp...

KennyBlanken 5y ago
> She had 14,000 hours, worked for the FAA as a safety manager and ran a flying school for 28 years Sounds like the FAA correctly decided that she should have known better. Especially given her age, she should have been dotting every i and crossing every t, because everyone knows the FAA comes down like a pile of bricks on elderly pilots.
- mmaunder 5y ago
  They do?
  - pc86 5y ago
    They might, but probably not for the reason(s) the GP is implying. I've definitely noticed a correlation between age and how quickly a pilot is to disregard safety, checklists, etc.
- amelius 5y ago
  > ... worked for the FAA as a safety manager ... Sounds more like she was a liability.
  - aiisjustanif 5y ago
    Sounds on purpose.
- jcrawfordor 5y ago
  The linked article is a little odd to me, this story is kind of famous as she's a bit of a celebrity in the aviation world for her accomplished instruction career. The way I've always heard it is that she was aware that her pilot's certificate was going to be revoked soon anyway due to her advanced age, and so she flew under the bridge well aware that there was a possibility her certificate would be revoked for it. AOPA's article supports this theory, it says that she did fight the revocation but quotes her saying that she knew it would likely happen.

temikus 5y ago

- Crashing an airplane - Recklessly endangering other people in the area (this was not far from established hiking trails) - Getting investigated by FAA All for barely 200k views on YouTube. Wow.

walrus01 5y ago
But it was all sponsored by ridge wallet, I'm sure that totally paid off. /s At least not sponsored by RAID SHADOW LEGENDS
johnnyApplePRNG 5y ago
Even hearing the synopsis, I don't even care to watch the video...
missblit 5y ago
His youtube channel really sets the scene... "I got stuck on a chairlift", "Skydive ends in police car", "A helicopter left me in the ocean", "I Brought My Dog Flying (Bad Idea)"... just on and on. In the don't bring your dog flying one he starts with "this story may or may not be true", mentions that his gopro coincidentally didn't capture the critical moments, then talks about nearly crashing during takeoff and all his electronics going out and his dog panicking. So of course he alledgedly continued on without navigation into a no-fly zone instead of y'know turning around and landing. I'm not totally 100% convinced the stuff is all fake, but at the very least he probably shouldn't be flying...
- rossjudson 5y ago
  I'd say that if he stays on the same path, we won't need to concerned for much longer. Compounding risks have a way of converging on expected outcomes, over time.
libria 5y ago
2100 likes & no dislikes, though. Looks like the people have spoken!
- 5y ago

umvi 5y ago

Even if it is staged/fake... he only got 200k views out of it, so it wouldn't have even been worth the cost of the plane

Digory 5y ago
Insurance.
- gruez 5y ago
  but if it's an insurance scam why bother filming it? Surely the investigation/evidence risk isn't worth 200k views?
  - Digory 5y ago
    If you think you’re good enough to fool 200k YouTube detectives, I imagine you think you’re good enough to get it past the average insurance adjuster. I think this guy’s risk-reward calculations are probably off by a few standard deviations.
usefulcat 5y ago
Did he even own the plane?
- ksherlock 5y ago
  The airplane is registered with the FAA under someone else's name.
reidjs 5y ago
For some people, notoriety/fame is more important than money. Now he has a one-up story for parties. Instead of a rich nobody, now he's someone who survived a plane crash.
rambambram 5y ago
Might want to check his other videos. Some have millions of views.

KaiserPro 5y ago

My dad used a fly a cesna 172 when I was a kid. So I've heard many stories from his pilot friends about losing engines, landing in fields and the like. It happens quite a lot, apparently. A few things strike me: o why was he wobbling the yoke so much forwards and backwards, that costs you speed, and knackers your glide efficiency. o Why wasn't he looking for landing sites (he was up really high, like 2k+ above the mountain top), edit: see comment daughter, decent is measured in feet per minute, unfeathered prop will cause drag, nailing your glide ratio so not 10 minutes glide time before action was needed o why didn't he set his glide path up properly, to give him time to think? o why isn't he looking at the checklist for engine failure? (my dad had one in the middle) I suspect he might not have one o Did he send a distress signal? o where was the attempt to restart the engine (granted it might not be young enough to have a starter, but he had the height to spin the prop) Finally, the other thing that gets me, is that the door is open before the engine fails. which either means that he's expecting the failure (checklists are your friend here) so why wasn't he lining up/searching for a river bed for landing?

verytrivial 5y ago
o Why did he hike to the crash site to where all the GoPro memory cards were, and where all the flight controls were still set to where they were when he baile---Ooooh. Yeah. Go directly to jail. Do not pass GO.
- mizzao 5y ago
  Can you elaborate on the jail part?
  - verytrivial 5y ago
    Well, up-front he says he reported the crash. If he said to the FAA / NTSB "I deliberately flew on an empty tank so I could jump out for YouTube views" he's probably only going to lose his license, otherwise it's going to be his liberty.
sokoloff 5y ago

bartread 5y ago

I mean, he literally says that he immediately reported the crash to the FAA and NTSB at the beginning of the video. It's certainly both fascinating and terrifying to watch, but wouldn't the FAA investigate, regardless of whether or not the crash was "controversial", whatever that actually means in the context of this incident (disclaimer: not a pilot)? Also, isn't the "controversy" here basically a bunch of armchair critics/commenters?

jrootabega 5y ago

Seems like a stunt on MTVs Jackass.

xzcvczx 5y ago

i am not a pilot but i am a skydiver so i am not going to comment on what he did/didn't do to keep the plane in the air. i watched the video and the one thing that makes it slightly more believable for me is the headset still on in (part of) freefall. it could easily cause problems on opening, and wouldn't be too suspicious to remove it if you were getting out planned or unplanned.

natch 5y ago

Repeated “oh my gosh” and “oh my godsh“ came off as the biggest fakey red flags here. Clear sign it was a performance; he was more worried about offending some sensitive people than he was actually stressed out.

shoo 5y ago
youtube demonetizes videos that use language that advertisers do not wish to be associated with. so, arguably less about offending viewers and more about keeping the advertising revenues flowing
- avs733 5y ago
  Which would totally be my focus if I was actually experiencing an in flight emergency as a pilot
gmiller123456 5y ago
He has plenty of places where he bleeps himself, so I don't think this really counts for much. I do this type of thing often myself, saying "whoops", or "Martha Faulker" even when no one is around.

stevesearer 5y ago

Oddly enough, I'm familiar with the wilderness where the plane crashed and based on the video am pretty confident I know where the crash site was. Am now interested in hiking out to it sometime too. In the case that this was real, it is interesting to me to see just how close he was to trails and camps without knowing it where he might have been able to better assess his situation and get his bearings.

k8sToGo 5y ago
It boggles my mind why he recommends a parachute but no offline maps on the phone. Still I think this entire thing is staged
umpalumpaaa 5y ago
Shortly after the engine went off you could see roads from the plane…
scruple 5y ago
Is that Hurricane Deck underneath when he bails? Haven't been up there for a while.
- stevesearer 5y ago
  Yeah, hurricane deck trail looks like maybe .25mi uphill away from where the plane ends up. Access would be tough in general, plus there is a road closure right now making the trek even longer.

arch-ninja 5y ago

This guy sounds like he's fishing for attention, the phrase "I didn't think I would have the courage to share..." is something 10-year-olds think up for attention. It drips vanity and a covered ego the size of the Hindenburg.

ShamelessC 5y ago
Apparently it's working. Since the whole "dream cheated @ minecraft" drama - it's clear that there aren't really any consequences for lying to millions of people and in fact, you might even get your own little fanbase defending you. The video is sponsored by the way.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Lying to the FAA on other hand does come with consequences.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
smcl 5y ago
You picked up the same thing I did. I'm not sure what exactly in this sentence does it, but warning lights in the "this person is lying to me" section of my brain started flashing.

rdiddly 5y ago

Everybody's got questions and suspicions, but here's my rather subtle one: If you're editing dramatic video footage for YouTube, why exclude the exciting moment when the engine suddenly quits? Why edit out the suspense of your repeated attempts to restart the engine? Why omit the drama of your repeated radio calls? I think if you're a YouTube narcissist, you leave everything in that attracts attention and views. Now of course maybe if your ego is especially fragile, you edit out anything that makes you look bad. (Bad in your own opinion, mind you. There were numerous things left in that make him look bad in my opinion, but I digress.) So maybe he thought he sounded panicky on the radio, and maybe he thought he looked inept trying to restart the engine (or maybe he was too dumb to try either of those), but that still leaves the moment the engine quits - why leave that out? Now you know what they say about assume: it puts U between me and some ass. Which I don't appreciate. But nonetheless I assume that moment is not shown from the cockpit camera because he killed the engine. And if he killed the engine, he probably never tried to restart it, and never made any radio calls. It's kind of like when your cell phone is turned off all day, on the same day your spouse happens to get murdered. Nobody can triangulate & prove you were at the crime scene... but.........

vl 5y ago
Trivial explanation is that cameras were not running and he started them when he decided to ditch.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
edoceo 5y ago
I've always heard assume makes and Ass out of U and Me - yours is good too, thank you, imma use it.
tshaddox 5y ago
Okay, but if he’s faking the video and the most believable video would show the part where the engine stops, then why wouldn’t he include that in the fake video?
- 5y ago

rndmind 5y ago

savant_penguin 5y ago

Is it just me or he speaks of flying with a parachute in just like many vegans talking about being vegans? The tone is so similar

stonepresto 5y ago

Browsing this guys YouTube video titles reads like a decent into madness… culminating in “I crashed my plane”.

geocrasher 5y ago

I couldn't stand to watch more than a couple minutes of this video. There are several clear landing areas within gliding distance, and in such gorgeous conditions he could probably could have hooked a couple thermals in such a light plane. This was a setup for YouTube, and he deserves whatever the FAA throws at him.

SteveGerencser 5y ago

I grew up flying a homebuilt Taylorcraft. There is no way I would have gotten out of that plane at that altitude. Those things will glide forever and can land on almost nothing. One of the biggest problems they have for new pilots is that they really want to just float and you end up using far more runway than you actually need. It's possible he's just a new pilot and panicked when the engine went out and would have rather relied on his skill as a skydiver rather than his skill as a pilot. But even the plane looks like it circled and tried to land in the river without him. Just bad all the way around. At the very least he needs to lose his license.

lisper 5y ago

Private pilot here. A lot of people have remarked on the lack of a mayday call. It's not clear whether that plane had a radio. Many aircraft of that type don't. That said, I see a lot of smoking guns: 1. He doesn't do any of the normal engine-out procedures. In particular, he does not turn the plane. He makes no attempt to try to find a safe landing site, which was pretty clearly available on the dry river bed. The plane he was flying is specifically designed to land in places like that. Even if he wasn't able to land, turning around would have placed him closer to civilization before he bailed out, but he clearly didn't even try. 2. His reaction when the engine quits is very heavy on profanities and lamenting the direness of the situation, and completely devoid of troubleshooting or planning the best course of action. Both of his hands can be seen on the yoke, so he's not trimming for best glide, checking the mags, checking the fuel selector. At best he is a completely incompetent pilot. 3. He is an accomplished skydiver flying a controllable skydiving chute (not an emergency chute). He could have put that chute down wherever he chose, but instead of landing on clear flat terrain (in the riverbed) he chose to land in the brush on the mountainside. That was either the most incredibly stupid decision anyone has ever made in an emergency situation, or part of a deliberate plan. I don't see any other possibilities. 4. The fact that he's able to get a shot of the plane flying below him also looks mighty hinky. He spent a lot of time in free-fall. For the plane to end up underneath him like that would be an incredible coincidence. Indeed, being able to hike to the crash site is mighty suspicious, even leaving aside the highly questionable decision-making required to even attempt it. [UPDATE] Also this video [1] where he spends a day at an airport trying to scam a free flight off someone by presenting himself as someone who has never had the opportunity to fly despite the fact that he is himself a pilot. This indicates that it is very much in character for him to try to deceive people for the sake of YT views. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWoEv0t5xGc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWoEv0t5xGc

k3lsi3r 5y ago
> 3. He is an accomplished skydiver flying a controllable skydiving chute (not an emergency chute). He could have put that chute down wherever he chose, but instead of landing on clear flat terrain (in the riverbed) he chose to land in the brush on the mountainside. That was either the most incredibly stupid decision anyone has ever made in an emergency situation, or part of a deliberate plan. I don't see any other possibilities. Yeah, this one seemed really silly. There is even a large open field at 5:36 pretty close to where he chose to "crash" land. Maybe not completely level, but as you said, many other options.

bagels 5y ago

The door went from closed to open before the engine went out. I'm not saying that's proof it was a stunt, but it sure is strange.

pageandrew 5y ago
"Open the door" is not on the engine out checklist, its on the forced landing checklist, which comes after all engine restart options are exhausted. He didn't run any items on the engine-out checklist. He went straight to skydiving. I don't think any pilot that managed to pass their checkride would neglect running a single diagnostic or attempted restart checklist item. This had to be intentional.
- bagels 5y ago
  Yes, my point though is that the door was opened before the engine went out. It might've been on his "before you have an engine out" checklist.
  - pageandrew 5y ago
    Its on his "get YouTube views" checklist

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

t8e56vd4ih 5y ago

why is this interesting to official agencies? because stuff insurance payout? i mean it's his plane. why care? why the response on YouTube?

pageandrew 5y ago
It is completely reckless to ditch an aircraft if other options are available. The chances are low, but it could have hit someone or caused a fire.
- t8e56vd4ih 5y ago
  why would he do it intentionally, though. isn't an airplane more expensive then what he can expect to earn with that clip on YouTube?
  - pageandrew 5y ago
    He probably has insurance on the aircraft, so the YouTube earnings + increased publicity + insurance payout could make such a stunt profitable.
  - dghlsakjg 5y ago
    I don't know what a youtube video earns, but it is entirely possible to find a clapped out old taylorcraft or equivalent for $10-15k. I think that breaking even is entirely impossible. WHistlinDiesel destroyed an almost identical airplane in a video...
    - bagels 5y ago
      Yes, but he only endangered his crew, thankfully.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

pageandrew 5y ago

I'm a private pilot and I regularly fly aircraft similar to the one in the video. Engines can fail for any number of reasons, but catastrophic engine failure is exceedingly rare, and most of the time an engine stoppage is going to be something that can be corrected easily, such as fuel starvation (maybe failure to switch fuel tanks?), or a misconfigured fuel mixture, or a fried magneto. As student pilots, we train extensively for engine-out scenarios by running through checklists to increase glide distance, diagnose the problem, and hopefully restart the engine. At the very least, we evaluate all options. The first thing you are trained to do in an engine-out is to pitch the aircraft for best glide speed, and you don't even see him do that in the video. The prop stops spinning and he immediately opens the door. Bailing from the aircraft was the first thing he thought of doing, and that is the complete opposite of what every pilot is trained to do. I can't emphasize enough how much the engine-out checklist is drilled into you during training. Any qualified pilot is going to exercise some of those options unless their intention is in fact to bail from the aircraft.

bagels 5y ago
The video is edited, so it's possible that some of those things were cut, but I don't think they actually were.
- can16358p 5y ago
  Yup. As he was explaining all the details for pretty much everything else, I'd also expect him to have him go over the emergency procedures/checklist on the video before bailing out.
BbzzbB 5y ago
>The prop stops spinning and he immediately opens the door. I'm no pilot (student or otherwise), but as a comment in OP's link points out, his door is cracked open before the engine shuts down. At 2:35 we see it properly closed (as a layman would expect from someone sitting in a chair in the sky). At 2:37-42 in the establishing shot and the shot of the engine shutting down, it is clearly cracked open. As tho he was peaking out to see the terrain prior to killing his engine, like he does right after in the video. That alone makes it... suspicious. You'd think he might have spread his friend's ashes just before as an explanation, but considering how he used said ashes as a video prop, I'd expect him to include that shot in if he'd done it. Does a small plane pilot have any reason to open the door other than anticipating a jump? Than there's the whole parachute thing, which is further notable as you don't see him wearing any in his other flight videos.

histriosum 5y ago

Private pilot here. Posting this because I haven't the regulation mentioned, and because several folks have made it sound like bailing out of a still-flyable airplane isn't against regulation. Among the several other regs that the FAA will eventually cite when they pull his ticket (hopefully forever), 14 CFR 91.119 paragraph (a) is compelling here IMHO. (asterisks around my emphasis): § 91.119 Minimum safe altitudes: General. Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes: (a) Anywhere. An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing *without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface*.

FabHK 5y ago
He was above a safe altitude while operating the airplane though, and not operating it when it was below a safe altitude.
- histriosum 5y ago
  In order for that argument to make sense, you'd have to make the logical leap that jumping out of the perfectly flyable airplane ceases his responsibility for operating the aircraft. That doesn't seem reasonable, and I doubt any judge would think so...
  - kayfox 5y ago
    AFAIK as PIC you are still responsible for the safe operation of the aircraft even if you bail out of it.
    - histriosum 5y ago
      Yep, absolutely 100%.

holoduke 5y ago

A YouTube video in this genre where there is a little questionmark whether it's real or not, is unfortunately almost always fake. How is it possible that you jump from a plane, descent at least for 5 to 10 seconds, deploy parachute and then make a shot of the airplane 1000 feet below, who made a full 360 turn, but during the shot flying straight, at almost the same altitude as where the engine problems started.

gromitss 5y ago

dijonman2 5y ago

I don’t see any tail number on the aircraft for identification. There is no fire which means likely no fuel. Could have been the reason for the engine failure but could also indicate planned activity. Who knows? The FAA will find out, they don’t fuck around.

dghlsakjg 5y ago

I'm a pilot and a paraglider. I own an emergency chute via my paragliding kit. I fly an experimental plane powered by a much less reliable engine than what this man had. My airframe has had an in air engine failure, and forced landing on a small road, although I wasn't the pilot. I have never once thought about bringing my reserve parachute with me when piloting my plane. I was trained to land the plane without power, as are all pilots. I don't know any pilots who have had a simple engine out that wish they would have bailed out. I know pilots who are skydivers and they don't wear their chutes. The ONLY pilots that I know of that wear chutes are aerobatic pilots who do high risk maneuvers. Absolutely none of them wear one that looks like a skydiving rig because it is VERY uncomfortable to be in a cramped cockpit wearing what is essentially a bulky backpack. In the video you can see just how cramped he is in that plane because he has a chute on.

topherPedersen 5y ago
At the dropzone the pilots usually wear emergency bailout parachutes. But yeah you're right, a skydiving rig would be really uncomfortable to wear flying. It looks like he was planning to jump before he ever took off to me. I've never seen anyone pilot an aircraft wearing a skydiving rig.
- dghlsakjg 5y ago
  I recall now that some aircraft types are modified in a way that the FAA requires the pilots to wear a chute. But as you pointed out, they don't wear a full blown skydiving rig.
nikitaga 5y ago
If you or anyone else ever decides to bring your paragliding reserve onboard an airplane, be sure to check its specs first. Paragliding reserves are optimized for fast deployment at low airspeed, whereas deployment at airplane flight speeds needs a slower deployment sequence to avoid excessive G load on both the parachute and yourself. For extra safety, getting a whole-airplane ballistic recovery parachute is a much better choice, although those are not foolproof either – installation must be done properly, and deployment is not guaranteed to succeed if your plane is in pieces by the time you need it, e.g. from structural failure or a midair collision.

topherPedersen 5y ago

As a skydiver, I think I noticed some stuff from the video that looks pretty fishy. Why is he flying with a skydiving rig on? Normally pilots where emergency parachutes with only one parachute which are made to be worn comfortably while flying. He's wearing a skydiving rig in the video which would be very uncomfortable to wear while flying an aircraft. I could be wrong, but that sort of makes it look like he was planning to jump before he ever took off.

DrScump 5y ago

The original on YouTube credits Ridge wallets as a sponsor (complete with referral link spam), so that's one company I'm never patronizing.

TheDudeMan 5y ago

If he doesn't post the full unedited videos, then he's probably hiding something.

beaker52 5y ago

I know this is extremely narrow but I think there's something in it: the way he says "I'm over the mountains and I have a [fricking] engine out" sets off my Spidey sense. This appears to justify the need to jump before pointing out the problem. That's not your reaction in an emergency. If you're making YouTube content then surely you want to show the sheer terror that you faced, not the calm justification for your bailing out. The problem is that your engine is out. Your response is supposed to be "[Frick], my engine is out and I can't see anywhere to land - this is concerning". Not "I'm over the mountains and my engine is out" suggesting that there is only one outcome. I don't know much about aviation, but his language and attitude throughout the video suggests to me that he's prepped to ditch the plane. I'm running off gut instinct here but it's always served me pretty well.

fnord77 5y ago

take the tiktok plane crash challenge !

scarier 5y ago

If anyone's interested in watching videos of genuine emergencies in light aircraft, Elliot Seguin (https://www.youtube.com/c/utopiasnow https://www.youtube.com/c/utopiasnow) has some fantastic ones.

throwaway73838 5y ago

No fire = no fuel? Easy way to have an engine failure

feupan 5y ago

So many people are suspicious that he has so many cameras and footage. Maybe that’s because he’s a YouTuber and documenting a flight was his exact purpose. There are many reasons to doubt this, but cameras aren’t one.

aembleton 5y ago
Going directly to the crash site to collect footage seems suspicious though.

bluehorseray 5y ago

Someone on youtube also pointed out that the day this occurred just so happens to be the 50th anniversary of DB Cooper's jump (November 24, 1971). For some reason I don't think that's a coincidence.

polynomial 5y ago

YT really pays more out for a video with 250k views than the cost of that sweet vintage plane?!?

bagels 5y ago
No, they don't. A rule of thumb I've seen is about $4/1000 views. Not sure about the brand sponsors though.

rkagerer 5y ago

People who do stupid things like this for attention really piss me off.

booleandilemma 5y ago

Only about 240,000 views. I wonder if he still thinks it's worth the fine / loss of pilot's license / jail time for reckless endangerment. Also, a selfie stick, really? He might as well have had a camera crew filming his little stunt.

whyenot 5y ago

This whole discussion reminds me of Reddit's imfamous /r/findbostonbombers. Humans seem to have this need to find and punish cheaters (see for example some of the experiments by Cosmides and Tooby). Sometimes we get things wrong. (we did it HN! Take that lamestrean media) https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/4f340r/where_did_we_did_it_reddit_come_from/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/4f340r/where_...

aaron695 5y ago
[dead]

aksss 5y ago

So... did the ridge wallet survive?

jwithington 5y ago

People really out here writing articles on Christmas

replwoacause 5y ago

I don't think I could make a faker video if I tried.

e-clinton 5y ago

Don’t think it was staged, but I could see him making questionable decisions. He seems to put very little effort into finding a spot to land. That’s probably because he had the shoot

jacquesm 5y ago

This reminds me of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RF9UVwWM9E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RF9UVwWM9E does anybody know how that ended, and if it turned out it was staged?

tverbeure 5y ago

This is the location above which he jumped: https://goo.gl/maps/jjqRoC4pyCzNYXDN8 https://goo.gl/maps/jjqRoC4pyCzNYXDN8. You can match the landscape features with the video here: https://youtu.be/vbYszLNZxhM?t=251 https://youtu.be/vbYszLNZxhM?t=251. He doesn't show it on the video (coincidence, of course!), but he could easily have glided ~5 miles south-west to some wineries.

SCAQTony 5y ago

His body has a blurred outline around it as he exits the plane.

diebeforei485 5y ago

Most pilots would run a checklist for an engine out situation. Maybe the video skipped over this because it's not raw footage, but it does seem a bit suspicious.

roeles 5y ago

For comparison, here is a video of a YAK-50 with an engine failure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrR8pnMgMiE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrR8pnMgMiE

josefx 5y ago

~2000 upvotes on the video, no way there is anything wrong with its content. Thank YouTube for providing such a great UI. /s