The FAA and their inability to action on Trevor Jacob and Red Bull cases

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has been under scrutiny lately due to its lack of action on two very public stunts. It all started when a YouTuber named Trevor Jacob had a supposed engine failure over mountains and decided to parachute out of his aircraft instead of gliding and landing; both the FAA and NTSB later found this to be false after they conducted an investigation into the matter. A few months later, Red Bull decided to perform a mid-air airplane swap which ended in disaster after one of the aircraft entered a spin during the stunt; luckily, the pilot was equipped with a parachute and got back on the ground safely. Important to note is that the FAA did not approve of the swap, and Red Bull decided to go ahead with the stunt without approval; in both cases, the FAA opened an investigation and subsequently suspended their licenses.

Trevor Jacob:

Trevor Jacob, a 28-year-old former snowboarding Olympian turned YouTuber filmed a video back in November 2021 flying his 1940 Taylorcraft airplane. In the video, he says he intends to take off from Lompoc City airport in Santa Barbara and fly to Mammoth Lakes to snowboard. However, when flying above Los Padres National Forest, Trevor claims the aircraft’s engine fails and parachutes out of the airplane, screaming expletives when the propeller stops spinning. “I’m just so happy to be alive,” he says after landing in prickly brushes. He then continues to film his six-hour hike through the forest in which he finds the mangled wreckage of his airplane; later, a farmer finds him at dusk and helps.

Almost immediately after he posted the video to YouTube on December 24th, viewers and aviation experts started to express doubts over his portrayal of the crash. They claimed it was staged and that Trevor had done it for views; they noted many facts about the video, such as wearing a parachute, not trying to restart the engine, not contacting air traffic control, and even having a selfie stick on hand to record himself jumping out of the aircraft.

In a letter sent to Trevor Jacob by the FAA on April 11th, the FAA said he had violated federal aviation regulations and operated his single-engine aircraft in a “careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another.” The agency said it would immediately revoke Trevor Jacob’s private pilot certificate, suspending his license to operate any aircraft.

Trevor Jacob subsequently posted a video to his YouTube channel in which he addresses the crash’s controversy saying, “I can’t talk about it, per my attorney. But the truth of that situation will come out with time, and I’ll leave that at that.”

In this instance, the FAA did not have the ability to prosecute Trevor; the agency can only revoke, suspend certificates, and issue fines.

Red Bull plane swap:

Red Bull attempted the world’s first plane swap last month in which two pilots and skydivers, Luke Aikins and Andy Farrington, flew their two Cessna 182s to an altitude of 14,000 feet; upon reaching this altitude, they were supposed to send their aircraft into a tandem nosedive, jump out and switch aircraft. The stunt, however, did not go as planned. Farrington’s aircraft entered a spin, making it impossible for him to enter the aircraft. Aikins successfully completed his half of the swap and landed safely. Farrington was forced to deploy his parachute; he also landed safely.

The aircraft were both modified with an extensive range of equipment, including speed brakes and larger wheels to help slow the rate of descent, a custom-built autopilot system designed for vertical dives and to ensure the aircraft remained on the correct trajectories during the attempt, grab bars to help Aikins and Farrington get back into the aircraft during the dive, and a Cirrus-style airframe parachute system.

When Red Bull asked the FAA for approval for the stunt, the agency denied it. The FAA provided its letter of denial. It stated: “The FAA has considered the petition, and finds that granting an exemption from § 91.105(a) would not be in the public interest and cannot find that the proposed operation would not adversely affect safety. The FAA does not evaluate these deficiencies in greater detail because the petitioner does not provide a sufficient public interest case. Additionally, granting the petitioner’s request for relief would be contrary to previous denials of requests for relief from the same regulation to allow the flight crew to leave the flight deck and airplane during the operation of the airplane so as to allow the airplane to simulate a crash landing.”

Red Bull decided to go ahead with the stunt without approval. Presumably, they thought that the FAA would not investigate if the stunt were to be successful as planned.

It is important to note that Red Bull posted a detailed account, including other videos and descriptions of how the swap was supposed to work ahead of the event.

The FAA suspended both pilots’ licenses saying that the pilots acted in a “careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another”

Both Trevor Jacob and Red Bull knowingly broke laws and regulations, knowing that the FAA cannot prosecute criminal cases. This could potentially lead to more people doing stunts of the type, with the tradeoff being worth it. A clear example of this is the fact that Red Bull decided to go ahead with the swap even when the FAA denied their approval; they presumably thought that if successful, the publicity would have been massive, and if unsuccessful, the worst-case scenario would be a similar outcome to Trevor Jacob who after intentionally crashing his plane only got his license revoked. Trevor Jacobs got millions of views on his video and made money from those views. The only consequence he faced was a revoked license; this was worth the tradeoff for him.

While the FAA did all they could legally do in both cases, that is not enough to deter other pilots from doing the same stunts. In both situations, they both broke multiple laws and regulations without any significant consequences, and this must change. The U.S. is the country with the most General Aviation freedom, and because of this freedom, there are these types of situations, but also a result of this freedom is the huge GA community in the country. Laws must change to have more significant consequences as a deterrent for these stunts. If not, we will have many more of these situations, and the GA community will lose this freedom.