[Alupis]

> Why? In all, the original crime is equivalent to dumping a big piece of trash in the forest

It's a bit more serious than that. It worked out to not harm anyone or do large-scale damages (fire, destruction, etc) this time, but it was still wildly dangerous and demonstrated a complete lack and disregard for aviation safety and rules.

A more apt comparison would be throwing a table off the Empire State Building, and it just so happened to not hit anything below.

[PinkRidingHood]

I'm reading about the "extensive planning enhancement" here on comments and I'm wondering why that would've got him more prison time... If he picked a time where there was no one and a spot to crash the plane where it wouldn't have started a fire (he probably didn't want to kill anyone), wouldn't it have been a less harmful act?

I'm just saying, the "potential to cause harm" is vague here, it could be equivalent to throwing down a table off the Empire State Building according to careful physics calculations and precisely avoid killing anybody. It's still harmful (because the calculations can be incorrect), but less so.

(honestly had he not destroyed the evidence and made the plea that he constructed the crash in a way that was designed not to harm anyone, and it ended up not harming anyone, I suspect he might've gotten a lower sentence)

[Alupis]

> If he picked a time where there was no one and a spot to crash the plane where it wouldn't have started a fire (he probably didn't want to kill anyone), wouldn't it have been a less harmful act?

No, because it was/is not possible for him to have made that conclusion from the air prior to jumping out of his aircraft - no matter the level of google maps or even in-person planning.

After he left the aircraft, he had no control over where it crashed, and had no way of knowing it wouldn't land on some hiker, hunter, animal, whatever... or cause a fire.

We cannot have a system were the public is afraid airplanes might just drop out of the sky suddenly. The rules are there for very good reasons, and this guy broke darn near all of them.

And what for? Youtube clicks? No, that's not acceptable.

> (honestly had he not destroyed the evidence and made the plea that he constructed the crash in a way that was designed not to harm anyone, and it ended up not harming anyone, I suspect he might've gotten a lower sentence)

No, because the regulator is not going to see it as innocent. This is a highly trained aviator - as are all aviators, and he certainly knew how dangerous this could have been. He had no clearances with ATC/FAA to have other aircraft avoid the area, or emergency services on ready in case something went wrong.

We allow acrobatics, stunts, and yes even crashes on purpose (movies or whatever) under tightly controlled circumstances where everyone knows what is going on. That was not the case here... this guy just decided to do it all on his own.

Aviation is a highly professional community - even at the amateur level - and for very good reasons.