A midair plane swap stunt performed by two Red Bull pilots Sunday did not go as planned after one aircraft involved spiraled out of control and crashed.
“The FAA will investigate Sunday evening’s attempted Red Bull Plane Swap in Arizona,” the agency said in a statement to GlobalAir.com.
In the planned stunt, Luke Aikins and his cousin Andy Farrington, both skydivers and pilots, would fly their specially modified 1964 Cessna 182 aircraft up to 14,000 feet. The pilots would then position the aircraft into a vertical nosedive before jumping out and attempting to reach the other unmanned aircraft in under a minute, regaining control and landing safely.
According to the agency, a Cessna 182 used in the stunt crashed after spinning out of control. One pilot landed safely by parachute, while the other completed the stunt, regaining control of the second aircraft and landing safely.
Since the announcement of the stunt in March, many have taken to social media to voice their concerns about the never-before-attempted swap.
When the FAA revoked the license of YouTube personality Trevor Jacob last week for “intentionally abandoning” his aircraft in a filmed stunt, questions began flooding the internet on how Red Bull had gotten the approval for its self-touted “world’s first” aviation feat.
The FAA says Red Bull received no such approval.
In a letter obtained by GlobalAir.com, the FAA denied Red Bull’s request for an exemption two days before the stunt was to be live-streamed on Hulu.
Luke Aikins petitioned the FAA for an exemption from regulation 91.105(a)(1), which states that a person must be in the cockpit when an aircraft is in flight.
When asked by the agency how granting the exemption would be in the public interest, Aikins said he had “made media and sponsor commitment regarding this event.”
Regardless, the FAA said in its letter that the approval for the exemption is simply not “in the public interest and cannot find that the proposed operation would not adversely affect safety.”
The agency also said that the stunt violated additional regulations.
At this time, it is unclear what went wrong during the stunt and the location of the crashed aircraft has not been released.
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