Video of engine failure and subsequent bailout/post crash...


Looks like the FAA spanked his pee pee:


Blancolirio update...

All I can think is, who does a selfie stick for an emergency bailout?

Maybe spend less time placing cameras everywhere and more time on engine maintenance?

Almost looks planned.

I hope the FAA loves him tenderly.

Or less time setting things up for such spectacular shots of a (clearly) staged event to get more views/likes/publicity.  Here's hoping he sees the inside of a court room jail cell.

Damn,he's getting cooked like a Christmas ham on his youtube channel.

I didn’t follow it all but he claims to always wear a parachute while flying......unfortunately his own videos do not bear that out.

I hope the FAA screws him to the floor and the state nails him for the illegal disposal of the aircraft on public lands and has to pay for removal costs.  

It might cut into his click income.

Not to mention the loss of a vintage aircraft.

Looks staged to me, and poorly staged at that.  If investigation finds nothing was wrong he needs to pay  for retrieval of aircraft and investigation cost.  

I'm all about freedom and I don't like the man, but if he staged this it's the sort of situation where you hope the man gets into his life.  That  airplane could've landed on top of somebody's head.  If it was staged and he has insurance that paid I hope they nail him to the wall.

Holding on to the narcissus stick the whole time seems like it was a major priority. Staged like a bitch. Will probably do some jail time in the end.

Did he even try to dump the nose to recover?

It gave us a great shot of a wadi I could have landed 3x in.

I like how the prop stopped and then started windmilling after he bailed out -- my first thought was, "well, maybe it had to be hand propped and something seized"...nope. Also, the number of roads and trails from the video where it looked like he could've set down in his chute, yet he decided to follow the plane. If you're gonna make it look like the engine failed, at least let it surge off and on a few times.

When he went out the door, the yoke moved forward and the plane nosed down, picking up airspeed (causing the prop to windmill).  It apparently kept the nose down attitude until impact, instead of the nose coming back up after it picked up speed.

He trimmed it to dive when he let go of the yoke, so that he wouldn't have to hike for miles to retrieve his cameras.

Ten bucks says the engine quit due to lack of fuel.

As planned.

I found it interesting that he would be in such a desperate situation of hiking out of the mountains yet he never discarded his parachute rig.

Perhaps the wallet company that "sponsored" the video paid for the airplane and GoPros only and not his parachute, lol.

He could use the reserve as a blanket I suppose but I doubt he's that smart.

I watched the video, and then watched several of his other videos, and then googled who that guy is...he defiantly did this as a stunt...that's who the guy, a fucking stuntman and attention seeker.

That guy is going to jail.

I’ve NEVER seen any GA guys fly with parachutes unless they’re doing aerobatics.  Totally staged.  What a moron!

 Wouldn't want a post-crash fire to destroy the footage.

Or cause a fire that merits investigation.

That destructive little cocksucker Whistlin Diesel destroyed a very salvageable TaylorCraft. These guys are doing it for the monetization. It’s a real shame.

Headcase.

His social media features other attention seeking thrill videos.  It really points towards this being an intentional stunt  also.

Are old Taylorcrafts like that exempt from the requirement to have an ELT with up to date inspections?  If not, shouldn't his first choice have been to stay in vicinity of the crash until assistance arrived?  

And if an ELT wasn't required by FARs, wouldn't a handheld VHF or a sat phone and personal locator beacon been a couple very smart things to have on his person when operating in remote and mountainous terrain like that?  Dumbass would have been truly fucked if he'd broken a leg on landing out there with no cell service.

There’s a whole thread on an aviation page.
The aircraft was not in annual and it wasn’t a ferry flight.
He violated that and the ELT. The right wing tank fuel line was not hooked up. He suffered fuel exhaustion so he didn’t set the mountain on fire I guess. They need to pull his PPL and cut his balls off. Fuck assholes like that. Some kid might have earned his tailwheel in that plane. Or some young aviator might have owned an affordable first plane. Screw this guy and WhistlinDicklicker.

Unless he planned this with someone else who rats him out...
Or he lets the unedited footage escape is control...
I don't see anything he could actually get in any significant legal trouble over

I'm as far from a legal expert as one can get
But what could hem him up?
How would one "prove" it was staged to some legal measure?

I suspect the raw video would easily show it
And as I said if he planned it with anyone and they decide to talk
But beyond that I'm not seeing anything

Thoughts?

If the FAA determines it was an intentional act they could really hammer him.  Ca environmental agencies can hammer him on an unlawful disposal of waste.   They could also to a lesser degree still hammer him for a failure to remove said waste from government lands even if they cannot determine for sure it was intentional.....if the agency wanted to push the issue.  

I know in NY there is a hefty set of fines for that type of thing, usually dealing with burned out or broken down vehicles or sunken boats.  Usually not invoked unless there is abandonment.  They work with people trying to do the right thing.

Thats the key IMO
How could they prove it?
The only way I see is if someone rats him out and/or they get the raw video that shows some intentional act

One (of the many clues) this is staged. He was going snowboarding etc. yet I don’t see ANY gear in the airplane.

I'm no expert on aviation, and I know nothing about the airplane he was flying, but that entire video was extremely contrived.

At first, I was 100% in agreement with you on this...no way he'll get anything.  But the more I see how obvious it was he did this intentionally, I don't think it would be all that hard to prove.  I still think he won't get much more than a slap on the wrist, if anything at all.  I hope I'm wrong.  I hope the FAA and local authorities go after him big time.  This is a dangerous precedent to set.

The video footage he has released shows the fuel line for the right tank disconnected and hanging loose in the cockpit.  That is something that can easily draw attention to him, particularly if there is not an obvious INOP placard along with a logbook entry reflecting that condition.  

If the logbooks show it was out of annual, and there is no ferry permit approved for that flight, that's an easy violation to prove (with the loose fuel line in the cockpit being an easy counter to any claim that he didn't know there was a problem with the aircraft's legal status).

The feds love logbooks and maintenance documentation, because it allows them to crucify people after the fact, if they want to go digging through the paperwork.  This is why some A&Ps and IAs will say that their main concern is that the logbooks 'look good', and why some other A&Ps and IAs don't just accept the logbooks as a true reflection of the aircraft's condition (easy to get that attitude, when you've seen multiple planes with logbooks claiming ADs have been complied with, and you don't even need to open a single panel to see that those ADs have never been complied with).  

...but in this particular case, the guy has provided video proof of a questionable condition that would require certain documentation in those maintenance records, if he is to have any hope of deflecting blame from himself in an investigation.

Looking for somebody to 'rat him out'?  Open the logbooks, then go talk to anybody that has put their signature in those logbooks in the 13 months prior to the crash.

ETA: During the COVID shutdown, there were youtubers complaining that FAA inspectors were keeping themselves occupied("working") by simply watching youtube videos for any indications of someone violating the regs for commercial drones (since the videos are monetized, the FAA can claim any included drone video as a commercial operation of a drone).  Not real smart to post a youtube video showing some shady stuff with a part 91 plane, given that attention having been demonstrated over the last year and a half, or so.

Looks like the FAA spanked his pee pee:


Blancolirio update...

He earned that

Shortly after the news reported that the FAA revoked his license, he did a video where he essentially said that all the people upset over what he had done in his plane crash video, could just not watch his videos.

That is a remarkable statement that says a lot about the contemporary obsession with Internet celebrity and online life.  It utterly disregards the fact that he intentionally crashed a real airplane in the real world.  It's not like he made a CGI video using a green screen.  Amazing, really.

In his view, the only thing he did wrong, was get caught.

He's pushing pretty hard to get people to buy his 'merch' (T-shirts with stuff like "always wear a parachute" printed on them), claiming he needs the money to pay his lawyer bills.

I'm still wondering if anything is going to be done about him removing the wreckage from the crash site and disposing of it, before the feds had a chance to look at it.