On Sunday (24th), two pilots attempted to change planes midflight. But cousins Andy Farrington and Luke Aikins were unsuccessful when one of the planes crashed. This happened in Arizona (USA) during a Red Bull project called “Plane Swap”. The information comes from UOL.
Andy and Luke are members of the Red Bull Air Force and have been planning the exchange for 10 years. After 200 hours of testing, they decided to put it into practice.
The video, published by the YouTube channel Creative Space Media, shows when the two Cessna 182 aircraft were 4,300 meters high and reached a speed of 225 km/h. At that moment, the pilot’s cousins activated autopilot and jumped to make the exchange.
In the course of the jump, the plane piloted by Luke was not stable in the air, it began to spin and crashed. So Andy had to dodge and deploy the parachute to make the emergency landing.
Luke managed to board the other plane safely. After that, Andy was rescued by a helicopter and was unharmed.
Afterwards, the two gave an interview and stated that they had several scenarios planned, but not what happened. “Instead of stopping at 90 degrees, the plane continued to fall. I do not know what happened.”
“We’ve done 200 hours of flight testing, but we’ve never had anything remotely like it. He just kept falling.”
The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement that it is investigating the accident. He also pointed out that the event was unauthorized.
The company stated that the attraction could pose a risk to the accompanying persons. “On Friday, the agency denied the organizer’s request to exempt the event from federal aircraft operational safety regulations.”