The other pilot even offered to tail him but was rebuffed, with Jacob reportedly saying "if something goes wrong I'll just jump out".
> […] Jacob reportedly saying "if something goes wrong I'll just jump out"
Not to defend the guy or anything but this is interesting. Maybe in his mind the plane was due for scrapping, and his plan was to fly it until failure and then jump out. Still a bad thing to do of course, and could cause fires or could kill someone, etc, but this sort of makes it conceivable how he himself may have thought that what he was doing was not so bad.
I am further going to assume that in his mind the video would get so many views that it would bring in more than the $5k investment.
That is plausible, but also illegal. It would be a violation of multiple FARs to fly a plane that you knew to be non-airworthy with the intent of having it fail.
It's very evident that he thought what he was doing (including covering up his offense) was no big deal. This is exactly why he deserves to have the book thrown at him.
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/04/21/14/56879553-10739213...