The Federal Aviation Administration will investigate a midair “plane swap” stunt that caused a plane crash in the Arizona desert on Sunday, according to NBC News.
Pilots Luke Aikins and Andy Farrington were not injured, ABC News said.
The event, sponsored by Red Bull and live-streamed on Hulu, was marketed as the first of its kind. The pilots were to fly separate planes and then skydive into each other’s aircraft, leaving both planes unmanned during the “swap.”
Things didn’t go as expected.
“One of the two single-engine Cessna 182 aircraft used in the stunt crashed after it spun out of control,” the FAA said Monday in a statement, NBC News reported. “The pilot landed safely by parachute. The other pilot regained control of the second aircraft and landed safely.”
Mr. Aikins and Mr. Farrington put their planes into a tandem nosedive and turned their engines off after reaching 14,000 feet. The aircraft had a custom-built autopilot system and were fitted with a speed brake and larger wheels to increase drag and slow the rate of descent, Red Bull said on its website.
Mr. Aikins made it into the silver plane, but Mr. Farrington couldn’t get into the blue plane as it spiraled out of control.
“It just went, and instead of stopping in that 90-degree dive, it just kept going and got over on his back,” Mr. Farrington told USA Today. “It was just not a chance. You’re just happy everybody’s here and good and all that stuff, but just disappointed.”
The FAA said that the pilots had applied for the stunt to be exempt from federal regulations but the petition was denied.
“The FAA has considered the petition and finds that granting an exemption from § 91.105(a) would not be in the public interest and cannot find that the proposed operation would not adversely affect safety,” the denial letter said, USA Today reported.
Mr. Aikins told USA Today that the pilots “are going to go back and figure this out.”
• Peter Santo can be reached at psanto@washingtontimes.com.
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