Is there a law that says you can't intentionally crash a plane? Honest question. There isn't a law that prevents you from intentionally crashing other vehicles. Just around property damage and endangering other people.
You can probably do whatever you want with your private vehicle on your private land. But on public roads you need a license to operate, and you must operate the vehicle in certain prescribed ways.
Similarly you can probably do whatever you want with your private air vehicle while it sits on your private land, but when you are operating in public air space then you must operate in the ways prescribed by your pilot license.
Sort of.
Own plane, own land and a filed flight path should satisfy the FAA's requirements, though you may also need to take active measures to ensure your private land is clear of things that could be harmed. After that, there is the environmental component. Our influencer here not only inundated the crash site with leaded avgas, but likely also sprinkled it all the way to the hangar. Given the track record of decision making, I have no hope he disposed of the parts properly, either.
Your instincts are correct:
> Jacob drove the wreckage to Lompoc City Airport and unloaded it in a hangar. He then cut up and destroyed the airplane wreckage and, over the course of a few days, deposited the detached parts of the wrecked airplane into trash bins at the airport and elsewhere
If he had a private air field/airport and "landed" (crashed) the plane on his air field, then that could be argued, but there's still the fact that he bailed out of the airplane and left it in an uncontrolled state, in which case there's probably some kind of 'reckless' charge that could be thrown at him.
You are probably underestimating how wast that area must be to do that.
No. We do crash tests from time to time [1]. But at a minimum, you must control--not even just own--the terrain you're crashing into. (It's also not solely a Part 91/FAA matter. The EPA, for example, would also want to have a say.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Boeing_727_crash_experime...
I have an intuitive sense of what you're pointing at with the Boeing 727 crash experiment, but how does the law phrase it?
"The power to govern, manage, direct, or oversee something" [1]. So if I own/possess acres of unfenced grasslands, I'd need to put up fences or people to monitor the property or at the very least crash site's borders.
If you want to crash a plane, you'd likely have to apply for/receive temporary flight restrictions over the area where you want to crash it so that ATC can ensure everyone else stays clear.
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/foa_html...
Correct. I was simply talking about control of the land underneath. Owning and controlling the land doesn't mean you have any rights to its airspace.
The site in Mexico was chosen because authorities in the United States would not allow the test to take place.
Arguably whenever you could expect that not crashing the vehicle would lead to a worse outcome. In the plane example, this might be true if you expect to loose control of the plane at some point (due to mechanical failure or force) and a controlled crash is the best option to avoid (possibly) impacting a more populated area. But I agree that this is a rare scenario.
What Trevor did would be considered an "aerobatic flight" [1]
"aerobatic flight means an intentional maneuver involving an abrupt change in an aircraft's attitude, an abnormal attitude, or abnormal acceleration, not necessary for normal flight."
He may have been technically legal on the FAA side, but reckless dumping of hazardous materials in the desert is probably an actual charge they could have nailed him on. Perhaps "operating a vehicle off an approved trail" type of charge, or some kind of wildlife violation / fire hazard are also what I would guess. Perhaps running afoul of some kind of parachuting laws as well, maybe having to file for that so other aviators know about it.
Someone below mentioned filing a flight plan, which has nothing to do with anything. Flight plans are to aid in search-and-rescue if you dont show up.
[1] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F...
EDIT: Looks like user JumpCrisscross beat me to it.
1: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F...
Those two sentences don't make any sense next to each other. There's no way to intentionally crash your vehicle that doesn't include several other things for which their are specific laws for. One can't intentionally crash a car in the same way that you can intentionally swing a bat in your backyard without hitting anything.
Edit: Also, for what it's worth, it wasn't even his plane.
What exactly do you mean here? I've witnessed plenty of vehicle damage done on private ranchland from various obstacles, and in some cases, other family/friends' vehicles. If you wanted to drive your vehicle into a big rock on your own land, what exactly stops you?
And you can't fly an airplane on your land because you don't own the air. He crashed a plane that wasn't his on land that wasn't his.
Did you mean to say that one can't intentionally smash a bat or a car into /other/ people's stuff without breaking a law? Because that seems pretty obvious.