Makes sense.
Apparently an FAA DPE recently passed him on the Private Practical re-test, meaning he was issued a temporary airman certificate and is using it, but the FAA has yet to process it or recognize that this occurred.
There is certainly a comedic side to this.
Silvaire wrote:
I’m not going to hazard a guess but I’m surprised it even made it to court. FAA attorneys are looking for publicity, to discourage pranksters.
FAA not involved, they don’t have criminal sanctions. FBI lied to and evidence destroyed.
Our training does not teach us to jump out but to land safely without an engine.
That’s highly depending on your training I would say. To put it another way. Most talk about reducing risk is pretty much pure nonsense if you got a personal chute or BRS and no “willingness” to use it due to “objective truths”. In an emergency you do what you think is best to survive. If you got a chute (of any kind), that’s your best bet unless there’s an airfield in gliding distance and especially so in the bush.
As noted, this doesn’t really apply here. He was not in an emergency.
Inkognito wrote:
I object to this blanket statement
Some context is missing: he had some fields / spaces in gliding distance where he could have safely landed (again, not my word). Our training does not teach us to jump out but to land safely without an engine.
It’s an objectively wrong call to leave a plane still capable of flying at ~5k feet above terrain.
As a former parachutist I object to this blanket statement, I’d rather egress too early than too late, especially if you wear a parachute designed for comfort instead of rapid deployment and also wish to have some time to select a place to land at instead of just cratering at wherever you happen to be or you wish for extra time to have if the main canopy doesn’t deploy and you need the reserve.
But all this doesn’t really apply, alone the fact that he had the intention to do this makes all the emergency procedures and exceptions moot.LeSving wrote:
that’s entirely up to the PIC
No.
The pilot has the final call, yes, but he follows rules as well. In this case, the rule breaking is so obvious it can be easily established just based on the video. This is not a “benefit of the doubt” situation. It’s an objectively wrong call to leave a plane still capable of flying at ~5k feet above terrain.
And I’m not the one making that judgement either, it comes from the FAA in their original letter to him asking to relinquish his license.
maxbc wrote:
At least he should have tried
Pretending this was an actual emergency, that’s entirely up to the PIC. In such a case survival is the only objective, and no one can blame anyone for using the equipment at hand. Trying to land in the bush if you have a better option (lower risk of death or injury) is silly at best.
Silvaire wrote:
As a result the only thing they could find to prosecute successfully was obstruction of their process
Indeed. And for the rest of us it’s an OK punishment for being a complete a$$ 
Which is a bit funny and a tiny bit worrisome at the same time
The guy has posted a video on his channel explaining that he’s recently regained his pilot certificate.
The rest of the video indicates a level of unbridled narcissism that’s amazing. My rather unsettling thought is that except for the felony on his record the guy will likely be very successful in life – he never stops his pitch and people will buy it. Or perhaps the exact opposite – it seems to be one or the other with sociopaths but they never change their attitude regardless.
The legal case and jail time are just the churning of bureaucracy after something that did no harm regardless of its stupidity. As a result the only thing they could find to prosecute successfully was obstruction of their process, a process which found nothing else that couldn’t be beaten. As I guessed in Post 126 he got six months.
Crashing a plane per se is not a crime. But he could have been convicted for endangering the lives of others and endangering preserved / natural areas (just like intentionally starting a fire anywhere is criminal).
License revocation (and life-long licence ban) is not under the federal justice’s jurisdiction as crimes are, it’s the under the FAA’s. And the rule he violated there is quite different, it’s the one stating that the PIC must control the plane at every instant and ensure the safety of the flight (with some exceptions, that are also subject to rules, none of which apply here). On an even less judiciary note, the guy also demonstrated poor airmanship (because he intended to crash the plane, but still), as he had a lot of height to find a spot to land even without an engine. At least he should have tried. @LeSving I believe these last two aspects make the whole thing specifically shocking to pilots.
I would bot be so sure about that – when there is a set of crimes to be prosecuted, sometimes prosecutors pick the “slam-dunk” one and leave the rest if they think the penalty will be enough, especially if it the offence with the higher potential penalty.
If he hadn’t covered it up, they might still have chosen to prosecute the act itself, but that would have been much harder.
