YouTuber deliberately CRASHES plane for views: FAA

US authorities have revoked the private pilot certificate of a popular YouTuber found to have deliberately ditched his plane for views.

Daredevil Trevor Jacob posted a clip of himself parachuting from the small 1940 Taylorcraft he claimed had malfunctioned over California’s Los Padres National Forest in December.

The 13-minute video – titled “I crashed my plane” – has racked up more than 1.87 million views but immediately drew scepticism from aviation experts.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has since determined Jacob operated his single-engine plane in a “careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another,” The New York Times reported.

“You demonstrated a lack of care, judgment and responsibility by choosing to jump out of an aircraft solely so you could record the footage of the crash,” the administration said in a letter to the 2014 Winter Olympian.

“Your egregious and intentional actions on these dates indicate that you presently lack the degree of care, judgment and responsibility required of a certificate holder.”

The agency said it would tear up the influencer’s pilot certificate and ordered the former snowboarder to surrender it.

Jacob, who has more than 133,000 followers on the video sharing giant YouTube, previously claimed his plane had experienced engine failure while on a flight to scatter the ashes of his best friend.

Multiple cameras captured Jacob abandon the aircraft, descend and reach the safety of earth, with the athlete saying “I’m just so happy to be alive”.

Many questioned whether the incident was real or planned, with the FAA agreeing it was unusual that Jacob had been wearing a parachute from the moment he took off, made no attempt to contact air traffic control on the emergency frequency and did not attempt to restart the engine.

He also did not look for a place to land “even though there were multiple areas within gliding range in which you could have made a safe landing”, and had a selfie stick in hand for the return to solid ground.

Jacob “recovered and then disposed of the wreckage” in the wake of the crash, collecting vision for his video. He has switched off comments on the clip.

He appeared unaware of the FAA findings, asking the Times this week: “Where’d you get that information?”

In another recent video he said “I can’t talk about (the crash), per my attorney”, adding: ”But the truth of that situation will come out with time.”