Posted on 04/25/2022 5:48:44 PM PDT by Trillian
A never-before-attempted aerial stunt which saw two cousins attempt to swap planes via skydive in mid-air ended in failure after one of the aircraft nosedived out of control and crashed.
Sunday's stunt over the Arizona desert involved Luke Aikins, 48, and Andy Farrington, 39, leap out of Red Bull sponsored single-engined Cesnas, then attempt to freefall into the other's plane.
The stunt began well, with both men leaping out while their aircraft flew in a pre-prepared formation.
But moments later, Farrington's planes began to spiral, and nosedived to the ground. Thankfully, neither man was injured. Aikins - whose plane crashed - did manage to make it into his cousin's Cesna - with the other man left to parachute to safety.
'It just went and instead of stopping in that 90 degree dive, it just kept going and got over on his back,' Farrington said afterwards. 'It was just not a chance.'
'I thought I left Andy a good plane. I'm trying to think of what else I could have done to make it better for him when I left,' Aikins said to USA Today. 'We do what we can to prepare for this stuff and we hope it never happens. This is the best outcome of a bummer situation, really.'
'You're just happy everybody's here and good and all that stuff, but just disappointed,' he added.
The FAA said it did not grant a safety exemption for the stunt, which was livestreamed by Hulu, and will now investigate.
It remains unclear what, if any, authority it had to prevent the flight from taking off, and what consequences its organizers could now face. DailyMail.com has contacted the FAA for a comment.
The pair jumped out their respective aircraft at an altitude of 12,100 feet with the airbrake system engaged on both
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Waste of a good 182. Yahoos.
They failed to get FAA approval for the stunt so they have legal issues in their future.
CC
Well, likely loss of licenses for the two of them. Beyond that, the FAA doesn't have much authority. We learned that from the case of the moron who recently intentionally crashed his plane so he could get YouTube views. The FAA folks yanked his license, threw up their arms said there wasn't anything more they could do.
Saw the video, definitely one of the stupidest most moronic sponsored acts of all time.
Beyond the craziness of the stunt itself, it seems like they’re creating an incredible hazard of a crashing aircraft (which they did), plus it seems like a really bad idea to attempt to skydive into another aircraft with a whirling propeller blade!
Can you imagine that interview?
Cause of accident? Uh, we crashed it while doing a Chinese fire drill in mid-air.
Given enough time and money, man will always find a way to harm, maim, or kill himself. Fortunately, this did not happen here, but the potential was outstanding.
Both engines were off.
Still a stupid stunt.
This kind of thing occurs at Peak Stupidity of a civilization.
>They failed to get FAA approval for the stunt so they have legal issues in their future.
One ought to, when reading this, mentally note that two people endangering nobody but themselves, using property they own, AND having taken the trouble to notify the government, may yet be punished because they did something the bureaucrats didn’t like.
If other posters are right, and they “only” lose their license to operate an airplane under normal circumstances, is no consolation IMO.
What a wierd concept, right, that some stale official somewhere doesn’t have absolute say-so over every possible human action?
Pull their licenses.
Not placing a judgement on it either way. Just stating a likely outcome given the current “variables”.
CC
Gina needs to learn how to spell “Cessna.”
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