A highly-publicised mid-air plane swap, the first of its kind to ever be attempted, ended unsuccessfully after one of the aircrafts spiralled out of control and crashed.
Two cousins, Luke Aikins and Andy Farrington, attempted to swap planes via skydive on Sunday night. The Red Bull-sponsored stunt took place at an undisclosed location in Arizona. After diving out of their single-engine Cesnas, the cousins attempted to freefall into the other's plane, reports Daily Mail.
Describing the stunt on their website, Red Bull had said: “On Sunday, April 24th, Luke Aikins and Andy Farrington will go down in history as the first pilots to take off in one aircraft and land in another after sending their airplanes into a nosedive and jumping out of them!”
Aikins and Farrington, however, were unsuccessful in completing the stunt as one of their planes crashed. The two pilots were not injured.
According to USA Today, the pilots jumped out at 12,100 feet in the air. While Aikins was able to successfully get into his cousin’s plane, Farrington could not make it to the other aircraft. Luckily, he was able to deploy his parachute and landed safely.
Photos of the crashed aircraft have since surfaced online.
“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.”
The Federal Aviation Administration has now opened an investigation into the crash. The agency had earlier denied permission for the stunt, per several reports.
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