Not sure if you all have heard but there is a story that is a bit related to this.

Few months? ago there was a youtuber who claimed he had an engine failure, while wearing skydiving gear. He said he took the flight to spread friend's ashes. He had a camera mounted on the plane, and on himself. He jumped out of the plane and recorded it crash into the ground. Then, he parachuted down to where the plane was.

FAA has revoked his pilots license. I am assuming charges will follow, since FAA said he purposely crashed the plane. https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/youtuber-trevor-jacobs-...

My cousin is a commercial pilot, I used to fly with him when he had his private license. The FAA does not mess around. There are usually very thorough investigations of plane crashes.

One of my favorite youtube series is from the AOPA air safety institute channel called Accident case studies. The amount of details in these reports is amazing.

I’m not sure but can we just stop this idiocy of people playing with planes like they’re Luna park attraction and just go back on being serious? Has marketing turned us In a idiot society

Right? I love Red Bull's statement of "going down in history of being the first pilots to take off in one plane and land in another" as if this extremely contrived situation is somehow notable. It's the epitome of hyping something just to hype it. Seems like a really expensive water bottle flip to me.

That is, more or less, the core idea of Red Bull's marketing strategy--one of the most successful marketing strategies ever.

Is it so wrong to hype something for the sake of hyping it? I certainly get as much entertainment value out of this as I do from a Hollywood movie.

This has been going on since the beginning of aviation. Look up "Barnstorming"

Barnstorming was at low altitude by slow moving planes. Things have come a long way and we're now dropping planes out of the sky from 3 miles up at 150mph.

I'm thankful the FAA is here to keep this shit under control.

I dont see how slower speeds or lower altitudes invalidates the point that doing dangerous stunts in planes isnt some recent development caused by "idiocracy". Thrillseekers have always existed and Red Bull is just capitalizing on them for marketing. There's no reason for Pearl Clutching.

If I own a plane and I want to crash it or kill myself, as long as the place of the “landing” is controlled, why shouldn’t I be able to?

That's a big part of the problem: It couldn't be done safely. It's very difficult to crash a plane safely.

What about the petrol and smoke? Can you control where they go? Who breathes it?

You may be able to control the place of "landing" but you can't claim to control the airspace above it.

One of the two planes did not land in a controlled manner.

I'm fairly sure they won't be crashing the plane in a place where people live.

Ignoring the crash for a moment, what happens given that Red Bull went ahead without the exemption? Will there be any repercussions?

More than likely it'll be a fine for Red Bull/the pilots involved - and at worst a revocation of the pilot certificates for the pilots involved for continuing ahead despite knowing that an exemption wasn't granted.

Pissing match between stodgy bureaucrats and company that can afford lawyers to fight these fights ensues.

The plan they denied was by no means outside the bounds of normality for the sketchy stunt-man things that the people involved do as part of the normal course of their business. So it should be a good long pissing match.

Yeah. They pulled a stunt that could (and did) crash a plane. Their plane, if they can ensure there's nothing on the ground to be hurt, it should be their own business. The FAA should only care if the ground safety wasn't ensured.

> Their plane, if they can ensure there's nothing on the ground to be hurt, it should be their own business.

Maybe that _should_ be the case, but it is not.

The FAA should have said "sounds good, but each pilot will need to file a new flight plan with the FAA before assuming control of the new aircraft".

Now they'll get fined less than the cost of an ad spot.

The "public interest" the FAA repeatedly cites as the main reason for their indifference and denials is extremely bizzare.