PHOENIX — An attempt to complete a groundbreaking stunt sent a plane plummeting into the Arizona desert over the weekend. Pilots are calling the stunt a success, although the Federal Aviation Administration may disagree.
Red Bull touted Sunday's Red Bull Plane Swap as a "world first" aviation feat and livestreamed the event.
Luke Aikins and Andy Farrington are cousins who are skydivers and pilots. In the planned stunt, the duo was supposed to send their Cessna planes into a tandem nosedive at 14,000 feet and jump out to switch planes.
Aikins and Farrington planned to skydive to 2,000 feet above ground level before getting into the other plane and flying up, according to the stunt breakdown.
Aikins was able to make the swap but Farrington had to parachute to safety.
"I mean, we proved that it was possible ... we're pushing boundaries out here," Aikins said, "and what's great is, I jumped from one, I got in the other one, we landed. I landed safely. Andy landed safely under parachute. The plane landed under a parachute. All of our safety protocols worked."
The duo isn't sure what caused things to go awry with the plane Farrington was supposed to swap into.
"All the numbers matched up ... everything should have been good to go," Farrington said. "For some reason, it wasn't that way but at the end of the day we're both here, we're both good to go. Everybody's safe and sound and I guess that's the important part."
The FAA said in a statement that the agency denied Red Bull’s request on Friday for a safety exemption to perform the stunt.
In their denial, the agency concluded that granting the exemption would not be in the public's interest and said it couldn't find that the stunt "would not adversely affect safety."
An investigation is underway by the FAA.
