7 ms·

The article says the FAA can't charge him with a crime, only remove his license If the FAA can't charge him, who is responsible for that? The local district at

The article says the FAA can't charge him with a crime, only remove his license If the FAA can't charge him, who is responsible for that? The local district attorney where he crashed?

jacquesm 4y ago
If he made a claim against his insurance they might nail him for insurance fraud, with the FAA report to back up the claim that would have a pretty high chance of sticking.
- monkeybutton 4y ago
  Is he allowed to not make a claim? Unless the plane was purchased outright, the bank will want to make a claim.
  - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    >Unless the plane was purchased outright, It may very well have been. Used GA planes aren't cheap but they aren't thaaaat expensive. >the bank will want to make a claim. It would take a very foolish bank to write a loan on a plane (or boat) that is secured by said object. It's probably secured by something else and even if it's not they probably won't care as long as the payments keep coming. Remember, they're money dealers, not plane dealers. They'd rather have the money.
    - nopenopenopeno 4y ago
      He is pretty well off. We can be quite certain that he bought the plane with cash.
      - ineedasername 4y ago
        Lots of well off people still purchase things via loans. Also various net worth estimations online place him between $1M to $1.5M. That's not the kind of money where you automatically just pay cash for something that might be $50k to $100K, especially when net worth at that level is often (not always) tied up in a primary residence. There's no certainty here. And regardless, insurance is required on private aircraft, owned or loaned.
    - dmitrygr 4y ago
      > It would take a very foolish bank to write a loan on a plane (or boat) that is secured by said object. What now? Air Fleet Capital and AOPA Finance will both happily do this. It is quite typical, just like buying a car...
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    No more than you're allowed to claim insurance after setting fire to your property.
    - sumedh 4y ago
      but he will claim that he didn't start the fire. How exactly are you going to verify that unless the plane has some blackbox?
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        Given that he nicely put it all on video...
        bombcar 4y ago
        I’d normally say you get to pick one - make the video OR make the insurance claim, but given how stupid this pilot was I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to get both (and arguably NOT trying to claim the insurance itself might look suspicious)
  - PeterisP 4y ago
    Him making a false claim would be insurance fraud, but if it's bought on a loan and there's an insurance policy favoring the bank, then the bank definitely can and will make a claim - it's just that the insurance company will then attempt to recover the money from this pilot since he's at fault, and is likely to succeed.
    - ensignavenger 4y ago
      "likely to succeed" if the individual has the money for them to get... they may succeed in getting a judgement otherwise, but if the individual doesn't have the money, they likely won't get it. But if the individual lied to the insurance company about having deliberately caused the crash, it is still probably insurance fraud, whether or not the individual was the one filing the claim, and can be prosecuted as such.
- astura 4y ago
  The weird thing is, when I looked into this, I learned that the plane he crashed didn't appear to be his plane. In all his other videos he is piloting a different plane and the plane he crashed wasn't registered to him, it was registered to someone named "Laura Smith." Edit: I just watched another video which claimed that he purchased the plane about a month before the crash, but didn't complete the registration until after the video came out (which was another month after that). Still suspicious.
  - smcin 4y ago
    Are you oppressing his right to identify as Laura Smith?!
  - Breza 4y ago
    There's evidence that he purchased an old plane with lots of problems explicitly for this stunt.
  - scoot 4y ago
    I don't think that we can assume that even if submitted on the day of purchase, that a change of registration would be processed immediately.
MerelyMortal 4y ago
The state or whomever should charge him for littering. Though I imagine they'll probably get him for insurance fraud.
- intunderflow 4y ago
  I would have thought there would be a felony for intentionally crashing an aircraft
  - daniel-cussen 4y ago
    There would have to be harm...I mean I think so. Like if he made sure nobody got hurt? No damage, no risk?
    - MerelyMortal 4y ago
      "Reckless endangerment" doesn't necessarily have to have harm done to be a crime. The pilot could not have known with 100% certainty that the plane wouldn't land on a hiker or wildlife.
      - daniel-cussen 4y ago
        Oh that makes sense. And it's an airplane, the ultimate sword of Damocles hanging over people's heads by a horse hair, yeah this was like a fucking kamikaze. And like the other commenters say, there are means to do aircraft destructions properly, with permission and so forth, meaning in that case with 0% chance of killing living things and therefore no felony.
    - brewdad 4y ago
      If he stayed with the plane all the way to the ground in control he could make that argument. The minute he relenquished control of the plane, there was risk it would go somewhere he didn't expect.
  - ericd 4y ago
    Why would you need to make that criminal? It's already a crime to do something criminal like hurting someone else whether it's with a plane, a car, or a knife.
perihelions 4y ago
I'd imagine a US attorney. Don't airspace crimes usually fall under federal jurisdiction? Here's a fancy-looking felony that seems on point: - "18 U.S. Code § 32 - Destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities" https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/32 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/32
- thematrixturtle 4y ago
  That's for tampering with aircraft "used, operated, or employed in interstate, overseas, or foreign air commerce", which seems unlikely for a private GA plane, even if you stretch the definition of "interstate commerce" like courts like to do. Plus the section is really about other people's planes, not ones you own, otherwise anybody performing maintenance work "disabling" a plane just committed a felony.
  - stordoff 4y ago
    > That's for tampering with aircraft "used, operated, or employed in interstate, overseas, or foreign air commerce" Is that not an OR requirement of paragraph (1), meaning that "sets fire to, damages, destroys, disables, or wrecks any aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States" would be sufficient on its own? That was my initial reading of the paragraph, but I'm not hugely familiar with US law. "Special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States" seems to be defined here: > “special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States” includes any of the following aircraft in flight: (A) a civil aircraft of the United States. (B) an aircraft of the armed forces of the United States. (C) another aircraft in the United States.[...] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/46501#2 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/46501#2
    - perihelions 4y ago
      I think the US Attorneys' Manual agrees with your reading: - "Jurisdiction over acts relating to the destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities extends to "any aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States." https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-1423-destruction-aircraft-18-usc-32a https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...
moralestapia 4y ago
If what he did is somehow linked to attempting to start a fire in federal land, arson or w/e (which I don't think is a hard thing to argue), he's in BIG trouble. If one or two people come out later and state they were hiking around the area when/where this happened, he's in BIG trouble. Also, this is a wild speculation, but I'm sure 9/11 put in place a lot of dos and don'ts regarding aircraft and their use linked to terrorism. I mean, I don't think he was a terrorist, but if the local jurisdiction finds a way to make it look that way ... he's in BIG trouble, again. I know this is a bit exaggerated, but I think they're going to throw everything they can at him, to make an example out of this sort of thing and prevent others in the future from attempting these idiotic "stunts".
protomyth 4y ago
The United States Attorney is the folks that actually prosecute federal crimes. They decide to bring criminal charges. https://www.justice.gov/usao https://www.justice.gov/usao https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-27000-principles-federal-prosecution https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-27000-principles-federal-pro... Old comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16586965 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16586965
daveslash 4y ago
From the article, it sounds like they can't even remove his license - they can only ask for it back and fine him for every days that he doesn't voluntarily return it.

The article says the FAA can't charge him with a crime, only remove his license If the FAA can't charge him, who is responsible for that? The local district attorney where he crashed?

jacquesm 4y ago

If he made a claim against his insurance they might nail him for insurance fraud, with the FAA report to back up the claim that would have a pretty high chance of sticking.

monkeybutton 4y ago
Is he allowed to not make a claim? Unless the plane was purchased outright, the bank will want to make a claim.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  >Unless the plane was purchased outright, It may very well have been. Used GA planes aren't cheap but they aren't thaaaat expensive. >the bank will want to make a claim. It would take a very foolish bank to write a loan on a plane (or boat) that is secured by said object. It's probably secured by something else and even if it's not they probably won't care as long as the payments keep coming. Remember, they're money dealers, not plane dealers. They'd rather have the money.
  - nopenopenopeno 4y ago
    He is pretty well off. We can be quite certain that he bought the plane with cash.
    - ineedasername 4y ago
      Lots of well off people still purchase things via loans. Also various net worth estimations online place him between $1M to $1.5M. That's not the kind of money where you automatically just pay cash for something that might be $50k to $100K, especially when net worth at that level is often (not always) tied up in a primary residence. There's no certainty here. And regardless, insurance is required on private aircraft, owned or loaned.
  - dmitrygr 4y ago
    > It would take a very foolish bank to write a loan on a plane (or boat) that is secured by said object. What now? Air Fleet Capital and AOPA Finance will both happily do this. It is quite typical, just like buying a car...
- jacquesm 4y ago
  No more than you're allowed to claim insurance after setting fire to your property.
  - sumedh 4y ago
    but he will claim that he didn't start the fire. How exactly are you going to verify that unless the plane has some blackbox?
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      Given that he nicely put it all on video...
      - bombcar 4y ago
        I’d normally say you get to pick one - make the video OR make the insurance claim, but given how stupid this pilot was I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to get both (and arguably NOT trying to claim the insurance itself might look suspicious)
- PeterisP 4y ago
  Him making a false claim would be insurance fraud, but if it's bought on a loan and there's an insurance policy favoring the bank, then the bank definitely can and will make a claim - it's just that the insurance company will then attempt to recover the money from this pilot since he's at fault, and is likely to succeed.
  - ensignavenger 4y ago
    "likely to succeed" if the individual has the money for them to get... they may succeed in getting a judgement otherwise, but if the individual doesn't have the money, they likely won't get it. But if the individual lied to the insurance company about having deliberately caused the crash, it is still probably insurance fraud, whether or not the individual was the one filing the claim, and can be prosecuted as such.
astura 4y ago
The weird thing is, when I looked into this, I learned that the plane he crashed didn't appear to be his plane. In all his other videos he is piloting a different plane and the plane he crashed wasn't registered to him, it was registered to someone named "Laura Smith." Edit: I just watched another video which claimed that he purchased the plane about a month before the crash, but didn't complete the registration until after the video came out (which was another month after that). Still suspicious.
- smcin 4y ago
  Are you oppressing his right to identify as Laura Smith?!
- Breza 4y ago
  There's evidence that he purchased an old plane with lots of problems explicitly for this stunt.
- scoot 4y ago
  I don't think that we can assume that even if submitted on the day of purchase, that a change of registration would be processed immediately.

MerelyMortal 4y ago

The state or whomever should charge him for littering. Though I imagine they'll probably get him for insurance fraud.

intunderflow 4y ago
I would have thought there would be a felony for intentionally crashing an aircraft
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
  There would have to be harm...I mean I think so. Like if he made sure nobody got hurt? No damage, no risk?
  - MerelyMortal 4y ago
    "Reckless endangerment" doesn't necessarily have to have harm done to be a crime. The pilot could not have known with 100% certainty that the plane wouldn't land on a hiker or wildlife.
    - daniel-cussen 4y ago
      Oh that makes sense. And it's an airplane, the ultimate sword of Damocles hanging over people's heads by a horse hair, yeah this was like a fucking kamikaze. And like the other commenters say, there are means to do aircraft destructions properly, with permission and so forth, meaning in that case with 0% chance of killing living things and therefore no felony.
  - brewdad 4y ago
    If he stayed with the plane all the way to the ground in control he could make that argument. The minute he relenquished control of the plane, there was risk it would go somewhere he didn't expect.
- ericd 4y ago
  Why would you need to make that criminal? It's already a crime to do something criminal like hurting someone else whether it's with a plane, a car, or a knife.

perihelions 4y ago

I'd imagine a US attorney. Don't airspace crimes usually fall under federal jurisdiction? Here's a fancy-looking felony that seems on point: - "18 U.S. Code § 32 - Destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities" https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/32 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/32

thematrixturtle 4y ago
That's for tampering with aircraft "used, operated, or employed in interstate, overseas, or foreign air commerce", which seems unlikely for a private GA plane, even if you stretch the definition of "interstate commerce" like courts like to do. Plus the section is really about other people's planes, not ones you own, otherwise anybody performing maintenance work "disabling" a plane just committed a felony.
- stordoff 4y ago
  > That's for tampering with aircraft "used, operated, or employed in interstate, overseas, or foreign air commerce" Is that not an OR requirement of paragraph (1), meaning that "sets fire to, damages, destroys, disables, or wrecks any aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States" would be sufficient on its own? That was my initial reading of the paragraph, but I'm not hugely familiar with US law. "Special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States" seems to be defined here: > “special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States” includes any of the following aircraft in flight: (A) a civil aircraft of the United States. (B) an aircraft of the armed forces of the United States. (C) another aircraft in the United States.[...] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/46501#2 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/46501#2
  - perihelions 4y ago
    I think the US Attorneys' Manual agrees with your reading: - "Jurisdiction over acts relating to the destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities extends to "any aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States." https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-1423-destruction-aircraft-18-usc-32a https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...

moralestapia 4y ago

If what he did is somehow linked to attempting to start a fire in federal land, arson or w/e (which I don't think is a hard thing to argue), he's in BIG trouble. If one or two people come out later and state they were hiking around the area when/where this happened, he's in BIG trouble. Also, this is a wild speculation, but I'm sure 9/11 put in place a lot of dos and don'ts regarding aircraft and their use linked to terrorism. I mean, I don't think he was a terrorist, but if the local jurisdiction finds a way to make it look that way ... he's in BIG trouble, again. I know this is a bit exaggerated, but I think they're going to throw everything they can at him, to make an example out of this sort of thing and prevent others in the future from attempting these idiotic "stunts".

protomyth 4y ago

The United States Attorney is the folks that actually prosecute federal crimes. They decide to bring criminal charges. https://www.justice.gov/usao https://www.justice.gov/usao https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-27000-principles-federal-prosecution https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-27000-principles-federal-pro... Old comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16586965 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16586965

daveslash 4y ago

From the article, it sounds like they can't even remove his license - they can only ask for it back and fine him for every days that he doesn't voluntarily return it.