FAA Revokes Certificates of Two Pilots Involved in Plane-Swapping Attempt (cbs8.com) 84
Whatever happened to those two pilots who attempted to swap planes in mid-air — skydiving from one to the other while the planes slowly tumbled toward the desert 65 miles southeast of Phoenix?
One pilot successfully reached the other plane — but the other pilot didn't, parachuting safely to the ground instead. "All of our safety protocols worked," the first pilot said triumphantly in a documentary streamed on Hulu. Er, but what about that second plane, slowly tumbling toward the ground without a pilot? It fell 14,000 feet, landing "nose first" (according to footage from a local newscast) — though its descent was also slowed by a parchute. (Both planes also had a specially-engineered braking system to slow their fall so the skydiving pilots could overtake them.) The stunt was sponsored by Red Bull.
Both pilots had previously conducted more than 20,000 skydives — "but there's a problem," that local newscast pointed out. "The FAA says it had denied Red Bull permission to attempt the plane swap because it would not be in the public's interest." So now both pilots — who'd had "commercial pilot certificates" from America's Federal Aviation Administration — have had their certificates revoked.
The Associated Press reports: In a May 10 emergency order, the FAA cites the two pilots, Luke Aikins and Andrew Farrington, and describes their actions as "careless and reckless." Aikins also faces a proposed $4,932 fine from the agency....
Aikins had petitioned for an exemption from the rule that pilots must be at the helm with safety belts fastened at all times. He argued the stunt would "be in the public interest because it would promote aviation in science, technology, engineering and math."
While both pilots must surrender their certificates immediately, there is an appeal process.
Aikins had shared a statement on Instagram after the stunt, saying he made the "personal decision to move forward with the plane swap" despite the lack of the FAA exemption.
"I regret not sharing this information with my team and those who supported me."
"I am now turning my attention to cooperatively working transparently with the regulatory authorities as we review the planning and execution."
One pilot successfully reached the other plane — but the other pilot didn't, parachuting safely to the ground instead. "All of our safety protocols worked," the first pilot said triumphantly in a documentary streamed on Hulu. Er, but what about that second plane, slowly tumbling toward the ground without a pilot? It fell 14,000 feet, landing "nose first" (according to footage from a local newscast) — though its descent was also slowed by a parchute. (Both planes also had a specially-engineered braking system to slow their fall so the skydiving pilots could overtake them.) The stunt was sponsored by Red Bull.
Both pilots had previously conducted more than 20,000 skydives — "but there's a problem," that local newscast pointed out. "The FAA says it had denied Red Bull permission to attempt the plane swap because it would not be in the public's interest." So now both pilots — who'd had "commercial pilot certificates" from America's Federal Aviation Administration — have had their certificates revoked.
The Associated Press reports: In a May 10 emergency order, the FAA cites the two pilots, Luke Aikins and Andrew Farrington, and describes their actions as "careless and reckless." Aikins also faces a proposed $4,932 fine from the agency....
Aikins had petitioned for an exemption from the rule that pilots must be at the helm with safety belts fastened at all times. He argued the stunt would "be in the public interest because it would promote aviation in science, technology, engineering and math."
While both pilots must surrender their certificates immediately, there is an appeal process.
Aikins had shared a statement on Instagram after the stunt, saying he made the "personal decision to move forward with the plane swap" despite the lack of the FAA exemption.
"I regret not sharing this information with my team and those who supported me."
"I am now turning my attention to cooperatively working transparently with the regulatory authorities as we review the planning and execution."
Re:Overbearing government (Score:5, Insightful)
That's easy to say, until it's your house they crash in to, etc. The FAA did the right thing. Fuck their publicity stunts.
Re:Overbearing government (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Overbearing government (Score:5, Informative)
A bigger deal probably than just doing it and not even asking for permission first is the only thing I can think of. I imagine defying the order definitely played a part in getting them revoked, if they don't follow this what else would they be lax on?
Leaving two planes under no manual control for any amount of time I would imagine is considered unsafe no matter the circumstances. Maybe there's a hiker somewhere that day, or a car driving by. Very very unlikely but not a 0% chance and for something that they rightly called not in the public interest (this is purely commercial, Red Bull is the prime benefactor).
There was little reason not to have a second pilot in the planes other than sensationalism. The FAA has the kind of job where they need to come down hard on everybody about most infractions. Getting even a bit lax with even trusted, capable people and you end up with the 737 MAX.
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A bigger deal probably than just doing it and not even asking for permission first is the only thing I can think of. I imagine defying the order definitely played a part in getting them revoked, if they don't follow this what else would they be lax on?
I don't think it matters really either way. What matters is whether they get permission or not, and not whether they were sure they didn't have permission — if you don't have permission, you should be sure you don't have permission in that case as well.
Getting even a bit lax with even trusted, capable people and you end up with the 737 MAX.
Trusted? Capable? That might have been valid before the merger with McDD.
Re:Overbearing government (Score:5, Informative)
even if the FAA was being overly cautious, that they decided to simply do it anyway after being told 'no' is a much bigger deal.
A bigger deal than what?
Than simply staging the stunt.
Holding a commercial pilots license is not just a recognition of technical skill in doing the tasks of being a pilot, it also reflects the fact that to the best of the FAA's knowledge, the person holding it acts responsibly and obeys all rules and procedures set forth by the FAA.
When guys simply ignore the FAA's ruling on a matter of safety they demonstrate conclusively that the presumption of responsibility and observance of rules and procedures was mistaken. I doubt they will ever get those license back. This is usually a one strike and your out situation, as it should be. Nearly all commercial pilots do not pull shit like this. No one has a right to such a license.
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Than simply staging the stunt. [...] When guys simply ignore the FAA's ruling on a matter of safety they demonstrate conclusively that the presumption of responsibility and observance of rules and procedures was mistaken.
Simply staging the stunt would be ignoring the FAA's ruling on a matter of safety already, because that's how the FAA rules came about in the first place. That's my point, I don't think it's more or less serious because they applied for an exemption, except insofar as that it constitutes proof that they knew they weren't supposed to do it... but is that really relevant? They would clearly have known this stunt was against the existing rules already based on their prior experience.
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Simply staging the stunt would be ignoring the FAA's ruling on a matter of safety already, because that's how the FAA rules came about in the first place.
Not quite. At no point when the FAA wrote the rules for pilots to be seated and buckled in the type of aircraft being discussed did they do so because they thought two people may try to change planes mid-flight for a stunt. The rules were created for different reasons.
Honestly the FAA should have granted the exemption to the rule as it makes no sense in the context of what was going on. But more so, when they didn't, the two pilots should have aborted the stunt until such a time where they have permission t
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What part of the stunt was unsafe? Were they doing it in someplace where there was a real possibility that the plane would land on someone or something?
So the pilots cleared all the land and airspace for their stunt—oh wait they do not have the ability or authority to clear the airspace. Did Red Bull evacuate all people where they performed the stunt for several square miles? No?
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So the pilots cleared all the land and airspace for their stuntâ"oh wait they do not have the ability or authority to clear the airspace.
They weren't using very much airspace. Was there a real collision risk with other aircraft?
Did Red Bull evacuate all people where they performed the stunt for several square miles?
Is that in fact necessary? Were the planes out of control for long enough to travel several miles laterally?
I'm not arguing that they should have been granted permission, or that they should have performed the stunt without it. What I'm asking is how dangerous this actually was. And so far all I see is a whole bunch of FUD and very, very little actual information. And that includes your comment.
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All it would take is a failed cable on the parachute they rigged to have the planes glide several miles to a crash. Unencumbered small planes are decent gliders and because they're designed for stable flight, they can level off and glide without any input from the controls.
The same stunt but with passengers changing planes might actually have been possible to get approved.
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They had some kind of other super air brake going on too, besides the parachute, to slow the plane down (which raises the question, in what way is this stunt not bullshit?) How does that equipment affect the picture?
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The parachute was the airbrake they spoke of. A broken cable would be the end of that.
Normally, a skydiver will have a reserve chute for that sort of emergency, but they have to see the problem and actively deploy it. Not happening on a plane with nobody on-board.
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They weren't using very much airspace. Was there a real collision risk with other aircraft?
Yes. Planes occupy the same X and Y coordinates all the time. ATC directs planes to different Z coordinates (altitudes) to avoid collisions. What an ATC controller is not expecting is that suddenly one airplane changes altitude on purpose.
Is that in fact necessary?
Are you not understanding that people exist every where on the ground. Since no one cordoned off the ground there I would say it would be necessary to make sure no one is on the ground. The crash was 65 miles southeast of Phoenix; it was not as if they were in the middle o
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What part of the stunt was unsafe?
The part where they put their planes into a nosedive and jumped out. Autopilot or not, that's a risky maneuver. And my guess is that the autopilot makers/engineers didn't take this crazy scenario into account during design and/or testing. (I wonder if they checked with the autopilot manufacturers to see what they thought of their product being able to correctly handle a nosedive without going into a spin?)
This kind of fun/crazy arrogance is part of why we won't have "flyi
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Well, what I mean was, what part of it was unsafe for others. If they did it someplace that their planes might likely crash into some uninvolved bystander (or homeowner, vacationer, etc.) then that was very bad, and fuck those guys.
And really, fuck these guys in general because why not rig the planes for remote control, get drone permits for them, have drone pilots on standby so that if they have to scrub the stunt they can not crash the planes? Of course then you're getting into whether you can legally hav
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Fair enough. And I agree in principle about the FAA being a little reactionary. It looks like it's gut reacting to the incident (and doing a little public CYA) by pulling pilot licenses.
And why didn't they just have a copilot do the dive with them jumping between the planes? It wasn't "Red Bull" enough? Anyways...
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The pilots just proved they're perfectly happy ignoring direct orders from the FAA.
The equivalent car analogy would be two drivers knowingly breaking several driving laws and then refusing to pull over when the police ordered them to. Would you really expect such drivers to be allowed to keep their licenses?
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Dropping stuff from the sky in an uncontrolled manner on to public lands (it is clear from the state of the wreck that the plans failed) is not "freedom".
There are actual places with controlled access, such as military reservations, where you can get permission for things like this -- as is done by hobby rocket makers for example. If these dudes (using the term advisedly) and Red Bull had really put in the effort, they very likely could have found a site for this and applicable site authorization.
But these
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Well publicity stunts in general are okay. The issue here is that they were told no and did the stunt, rather than appeal the no decision up front. They may have been able to make a case to get approval.
You can't make a case to not be punished for ignoring the FAA when they specifically said no. It's like going and telling the police officer you're about to go break the speed limit, him saying no you'll get a fine, and when you go do it anyway complaining about getting a fine.
Fuck these guys. I hope their "
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This is exactly what you described [youtu.be]. They knew what they were getting into.
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I'm still waiting for someone to swap out the engines while the plane is on fire and the flight crew is incapacitated. In a safe way, of course.
You mean modern software development?
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If you gave this set of requirements to the Rutan brothers, I bet they could get it done. And probably receive a half a dozen prototypes on how to avoid the problem to begin with.
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Re:Overbearing government (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that may be, but when they petitioned the FAA for an exemption to an existing rule, and were turned down, rather than to appeal or modify their stunt, that they went ahead anyway. *That's* the "what if everybody did this?" red line they crossed. What if everybody made their own exemptions for rules they didn't want to follow?
You may argue the FAA was wrong not to grant permission, and that's a complicated technical question on which reasonable people may be differ. But if someone ignores having permission refused, the FAA can't selectively make an exception for them after the fact without opening the door to every social media influencer with an idea that he thinks would attract eyeballs.
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FAA operates over sovereign USA airspace. Couldn't they do their stunt outside USA airspace? And where to sovereign air space ends?
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Exactly. This wasn't a spur of the moment, hold my beer stunt by a couple of rednecks.
The FAA of the past few years hasn't exactly covered itself in glory. It's incessant delays in approving SpaceX tests, the 737Max debacle and now it's response with this?
But then again, what good is having a government bureaucracy if you don't use it like a hammer.
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Hard Crash for a Parachute (Score:2, Interesting)
It fell 14,000 feet, landing "nose first" (according to footage from a local newscast [youtu.be]) — though its descent was also slowed by a parchute. (Both planes also had a specially-engineered braking system to slow their fall so the skydiving pilots could overtake them.)
At 1:47 in the news video you see the plane descending and then its wreckage, which looks unsurvivable.
Why was it such a hard crash? Here's an emergency parachute system working:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Can anyone explain the reason for the difference? Maybe "parchute" wasn't really a typo in TFS, and it's like a carton of Malk [youtube.com]?
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From that very short clip of the plane descending it it sure looks like the parachute did not fully engage and expand, maybe it just didn't work properly or was undersized for the weight of the plane.
Parachutes are complicated stuff, wouldn't surprise me if they just got it wrong in this case, whether out of hubris or incompetence.
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A shallow and superficial take, I admit, but the guy in the interview wearing his adjustable baseball cap backwards did not install a lot of confidence in his good judgment.
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watching the analysis video (https://youtu.be/IRRX9UoWkQY?t=177), the plane entered a spin as the pilot jumped out, preventing either pilot from entering the plane. The spin probably interfered with the deployment of the parachute.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes (Score:4, Insightful)
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but they also failed to perform said stunt and wrecked an airplane as a result
Stunts fail to get performed all the time. If they all worked with 100% certainty they would be boring and not a stunt.
That said one pilot did it, so it wasn't a complete failure. But they went into this expecting that it was likely both planes could get wreaked. That's generally what happens in a stunt. There's nothing from them to learn about this stunt.
There's plenty to learn about how to discuss rules with the FAA in the leadup to said stunt. Begging for forgiveness is something reserved for the wife af
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Indeed. I hope these two assholes never get certified again.
Appeals process (Score:5, Insightful)
When you ask for permission and get told no and get punished for doing it anyway realistically your appeal process should be someone coming and kicking you in the balls really hard and telling you to fuck off.
There's nothing to appeal. They ignored a very clear instruction.
Could not do it in a Banana Republic? (Score:4, Insightful)
The US is far more restrictive when it comes to these kind of stunts than smaller countries.
Or even India - which is in no way a Banana Republic. But it is a lot easier to convince the DGCA-India to let you try something like this than the US's FAA
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Yeah, this. If you want to do stupid things with planes, the USA is not it and I'm HAPPY with that. We almost got 10 years without a fatality on a major carrier. The way I see it, the FAA does a fine job when compared to what you see in many other countries. These guys are getting exactly what they deserve. Fly stupid, lose your license to fly in the USA.
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And if someone had tried this every year for the last ten, and died in the attempt, we would still be without a fatality on a major carrier for "almost ten years"....
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Red Bull sponsoring you?
Fine, get them to sponsor you to do that stunt in a country where that stunt is approved.
Not do it when it is not approved and get into legal hot water.
It's not like this is 2 random people doing a stunt and then saying "ops, I didn't know I couldnt do this". These are people holding CPLs, which I believe qualify them to be airline pilots. You don't want an airline pilot to suddenly decide to do crazy stunts when you are in the airline, do you?
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And yet, the US is one of the freest countries in which one person can fly in. And one of the most respected - despite certain issues, FAA approval of something pretty much guarantees approval in Europe and other places. I'm sure if India approves a plane, everyon
Okay... (Score:2)
1) Good.
2) Why is this on Slashdot?
Public interests? (Score:2)
He argued the stunt would "be in the public interest because it would promote aviation in science, technology, engineering and math."
I'm part of the public but I don't think one bit that this is my interest at all. In fact I think it's dumb and pathetic. I know it's done over the Arizona dessert, but the planes could still glide into something or someone. What happens then? We pay a few millions for the damage? It's not that easy! It's one thing to cause and accident and pay for it, but it's an entirely different thing to deliberately defy FAA's saying "no" and pull a massively reckless stunt and possibly getting someone killed. You ca
The sponsors share some moral responsibility (Score:1)
IANAL so I don't know if they share any LEGAL responsibility, but by sponsoring this stunt without checking that laws and regulations were being followed, they share moral responsibility.
Fortunately, nobody was hurt and as far as I know, the only property damage was to the plane and to the hunk of dirt the plane landed on. But if someone who wasn't involved had been hurt or lost property, Red Bull would've been morally and perhaps even legally obligated to acknowledge its responsibility and pay damages.
As
These guys should be very thankful (Score:1)
The nearly earned The Darwin Award.
Unfair? (Score:2)
So the FAA has revoked the Certs for the two pilots but I have to wonder if the pilots knew that the FAA had not granted permission for the stunt.
Even though the FAA told Red Bull "nope! you can't do that" Red Bull went ahead with it anyway.
The two pilots probably didn't know about the lack of permission as they had just been hired for the stunt, not get the permits themselves, so when Red Bull said "lets do this!" they just did what they were hired to do trusting that Red Bull had taken care of all the pa
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My morning mega dose of caffeine hadn't fully kicked in when I posted and I missed that part.
I stand better informed. Thank you for calling that out to me.
Why is there any debate abut this? (Score:2)
As a ground hugging person, I don't look kindly on assholes crashing planes on my head because "views, man. views".
If I owned a cabin within 50 miles of this stunt I'd be looking for a DA to charge them with attempted murder at the least, and anything else the DA thought they could make stick.
Not to mention the civil suits
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The debate isn't about that. This wasn't just 2 people. It was a large co-ordinated team arranging a stunt with checks and balances in place. Their only concern was the application of a rule not written for the scenario being discussed. Also the planes weren't left uncontrolled. They actually wrote a custom autopilot for it and modified the planes so that the autopilot would function during a nosedive. The fact it failed didn't mean they left the plane uncontrolled, and they had a designated and well known
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redbull must be pissed (Score:2)
What "public interest"? (Score:2)
Red Bull clips your wings? (Score:2)
Great advertising potential there. *rolls eyes*
Red Bull pressure (Score:2)
Most likely sponsor pressure. There's a couple cases where people doing crazy shit for Red Bull have died or seriously injured themselves. The company is so desperate to maintain their "cool" image with every more extreme stunts and not a fuck given for the safety of the people doing them.
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They'll probably outsource the development to a TV company, or something like that, to provide a layer of plausible deniability.
20,000 skydives? (Score:2)
Both pilots had previously conducted more than 20,000 skydives
20,000 / 365 -> 54 years, divided by two pilots makes 27 years - one dive a day. Assuming you do 10 or 15 when you go out for sky diving, that means roughly a sky diving trip per week.
Does not really sound plausible.
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You can do more than one skydive a day. :P
I included that in the calculation
Perhaps you want to reread what I posted.
However it is not important.
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20,000 / 365 -> 54 years, divided by two pilots makes 27 years - one dive a day
Can you read what you wrote or are you lying about what you wrote?
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No idea what you mean ...
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Sorry, if you do not say a single word about what you mean/what to say: so no I have no clue what you mean.
I calculated down that 20,000 sky dives are nearly impossible, if you see a flaw in my math: point it out. But if you want to pretend to be a dumb smartass on the interwebs: go ahead. /. is full of them.
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20,000 / 365 -> 54 years, divided by two pilots makes 27 years - one dive a day.
So your new tactic is denial that you write ONE DIVE A DAY. Is that your amnesia or dishonesty? Pick one.
Plane-swapping? (Score:4, Funny)
Can't they just swap wives, like normal people?
This stunt was as smart (Score:1)
... as drinking Red Bull.