(The Hill) – The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Thursday that it has revoked the licenses of the two pilots involved in the unauthorized Red Bull plane swap stunt that took place in April in Arizona.

The pilots tried to swap planes while descending. One pilot landed without injuries after being forced to jump and parachute to the ground when one of the Cessna planes spun out of control.

The other pilot regained control of the second aircraft and landed, the agency told The Hill last month.



The FAA confirmed to The Hill that “the attempted stunt resulted in the crash of one of the two single-engine Cessna 182 aircraft. The lead pilot requested an exemption for the stunt from the FAA, which the agency denied.”

Red Bull pilots Luke Aikins and Andy Farrington, who had FAA commercial pilot certificates and have conducted more than 20,000 skydives, attempted the stunt during an event called the “Plane Swap,” which was sponsored by the energy drink company and streamed on Hulu.

Both Aikins and Farrington must surrender their pilot certificates immediately, the FAA said.

In a statement shared on Instagram last month, Aikens said that he made the “personal decision to move forward with [the] plane swap” despite the FAA not granting the exemption he was seeking from the rule that pilots must be at the tiller of the plane with safety belts fastened.

“I regret not sharing this information with my team and those who supported me,” he added.



The FAA said it has also proposed a $4,932 fine against Aikins for abandoning his pilot’s seat and operating an aircraft in a reckless manner.

The FAA originally denied Red Bull’s request for an exemption because it could not show the stunt was not a safety risk.

link: https://wgntv.com/news/faa-rev...red-bull-plane-swap/

This is a rarity: appropriate action by a Federal agency.

Good.

Play stupid games........

Jim

There are hundreds of stunts performed in the course of a year around the world, at air shows, movie sets, etc.

These guys were idiots for going ahead without FAA approval, if they absolutely had to do the stunt then do it over Mexico etc.

I’m not criticizing the stunt itself, we’ve been doing aerial things that don’t make logical sense since barnstorming, but the decision to proceed without the FAA.

So how did they come up that fine of $4932?

quote:

Originally posted by Captain Morgan:
So how did they come up that fine of $4932?

FAA regulations state: "A general civil penalty of not more than $37,377 (or $1,644 for individuals or small businesses) applies to violations of statutory provisions and rules or orders issued under those provisions"

Maximum fine for an individual is $1644 per violation, and 4932 is 3*1644. So it appears they're likely fining him for violations of three different rules.

Based on what's stated in the news report, probably something like:
1) Operating the airplane recklessly
2) Failing to remain in the pilot's seat, and
3) Failing to have his seat belt fastened while the fasten seat belt sign was on

quote:

Originally posted by Jimbo54:
Play stupid games........

Jim

.......and they rang the "stoooopid bell". Got what they deserved, ESPECIALLY when the FAA forbade them to do the stunt.

Maybe, once again, I'm looking at this through the wrong lens. Who cares if two nitwits want to try and kill themselves doing something stupid? So long as this occurred away from the public where only the two pilots were involved, whatever. I just can't get too excited about something this absurd.

How did Evel Knievel ever keep his driver’s license? This is just more stupid government over reach. You shouldn’t need the governments permission to do stupid shit with your own property if you are not risking hurting others or their property.

Was there any chance here that anyone else could have been injured? Were they doing this stunt in a populated area?

This stunt and its results has nothing to do with their ability to safely operate a plane under normal circumstances. The FAA is just pissed that they were ignored.

They were dumb enough to do it over the US.

If you know the FAA wouldn't sign-off on it...go elsewhere.

Well if you don’t understand I don’t know what to tell you. Flying airplanes is dangerous. Once you jump out a plane it is an unmanned missile. It could fly for miles. It could hit anything. They have a license to do what they do. Now they don’t. Everyone is safer by this decision. There is never going to be a time when a stunt occurs where no one is in the airplane. For a very good reason.

They aren’t in jail. They just can’t fly. It was a good decision.

FAA approved of this.



https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne...drive-CAR-plane.html



Not really much of a difference between the two stunts and the results. My question is if the stunt had worked out what would the FAA have done without the crash?

quote:

Originally posted by gw3971:

Not really much of a difference between the two stunts and the results.

There would seem to be a huge difference between the two stunts.

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
Well if you don’t understand I don’t know what to tell you. Flying airplanes is dangerous. Once you jump out a plane it is an unmanned missile. It could fly for miles. It could hit anything. They have a license to do what they do. Now they don’t. Everyone is safer by this decision. There is never going to be a time when a stunt occurs where no one is in the airplane. For a very good reason.

They aren’t in jail. They just can’t fly. It was a good decision.

Yes, anyone who sees it differently than you is incapable of understanding Typical of you, you must be the smartest man alive…..

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by gw3971:

Not really much of a difference between the two stunts and the results.

There would seem to be a huge difference between the two stunts.

You are correct with the attempt. But one was guaranteed to smash into the ground and that was approved by the FAA. The other had a chance for success and two planes equipped with recovery parachutes in case it didn't and that wasn't approved. Typical government mentality. It was a cool stunt. Hope they try again.

quote:

Originally posted by gw3971:

You are correct with the attempt. But one was guaranteed to smash into the ground and that was approved by the FAA. The other had a chance for success and two planes equipped with recovery parachutes in case it didn't and that wasn't approved. Typical government mentality. It was a cool stunt. Hope they try again.

The difference wasn't success or not. The difference was in one case the aircraft was always being controlled by a pilot, and in the other case the plane was not.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by gw3971:

Not really much of a difference between the two stunts and the results.

There would seem to be a huge difference between the two stunts.

Yeah, I doubt that car (or whatever it was) would continue flying on its own to who-knows-where to crash into somebody's home or a grade school playground. . . Once it dropped from the aircraft, it was essentially an un-guided bomb (hence the need to get FAA approval - it is typically illegal to drop items from an aircraft). I assume they had to show that there was no possible way the vehicle would be able to reach any inhabited area after it was released from the drop point. And the 'passengers' all had parachutes. Pretty vanilla 'stunt,' actually.

In this case, the aircraft were flying without a pilot. Who knows where they could have come down? WAY different than a derelict car following a ballistic trajectory.

Those (ex-) pilots were idiots to do something like this.

quote:

Originally posted by Hound Dog:

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by gw3971:

Not really much of a difference between the two stunts and the results.

There would seem to be a huge difference between the two stunts.

Yeah, I doubt that car (or whatever it was) would continue flying on its own to who-knows-where to crash into somebody's home or a grade school playground. . . Once it dropped from the aircraft, it was essentially an un-guided bomb (hence the need to get FAA approval - it is typically illegal to drop items from an aircraft). I assume they had to show that there was no possible way the vehicle would be able to reach any inhabited area after it was released from the drop point. And the 'passengers' all had parachutes. Pretty vanilla 'stunt,' actually.

In this case, the aircraft were flying without a pilot. Who knows where they could have come down? WAY different than a derelict car following a ballistic trajectory.

Those (ex-) pilots were idiots to do something like this.

Well paid and interesting idiots... I'm sure they weren't surprised by this outcome.

quote:

Yeah, I doubt that car (or whatever it was) would continue flying on its own to who-knows-where to crash into somebody's home or a grade school playground. . . Once it dropped from the aircraft, it was essentially an un-guided bomb (hence the need to get FAA approval - it is typically illegal to drop items from an aircraft). I assume they had to show that there was no possible way the vehicle would be able to reach any inhabited area after it was released from the drop point. And the 'passengers' all had parachutes. Pretty vanilla 'stunt,' actually.

Both planes had parachutes as well that could be activated at anytime from ground controllers. The plane wasn't going anywhere. If the stunt worked it would have been fun and if it didn't it was exactly the same thing as dropping the car over the middle of nowhere Arizona.