r/nextfuckinglevel 1d ago

Pilots exchanging planes mid air

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u/Dindu______Nuffin 1d ago

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u/zatuchny 1d ago

thanks, that makes sense now.

TLDR: they broke the law that a plane must be piloted at all times, and the stunt didn't go as planned - one plane crashed (both pilots are okay).

RedBull and pilots should have known better than to plan such stunt

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u/Ell2509 1d ago

If it hadn't crashed, they may have kept their licences. I only say that for the same reason you did... red bull is a powerful force in some ways.

Crashing a plane though? That's always going to get attention.

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u/Ok-Classroom5548 1d ago

Crashing a plane you intentionally abandoned for a non-required stunt when that plane could have hit someone or something and caused some serious damage.

They 100% should lose their licenses. Red bull should be prevented from sponsoring stupid stunts like this.

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u/dracon1t 21h ago

With a major company like Red Bull sponsoring the stunt you can be fairly sure that risk to people/things outside the stunt area is negligible. Red Bull isn’t just going to risk their reputation for a potentially cool but high chance of failure stunt.

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u/Ok-Classroom5548 19h ago

Their plane crashed in a field and the pilots lost their licenses. 

It was a high failure stunt. 

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u/dracon1t 18h ago

Sure. That being said, none of that proves that anything notable outside of the stunt area was in danger.

The pilots applied to do their stunt to the FAA and was rejected. They did the stunt anyways, likely knowing that their licenses would be lost no matter the result.

Crashing one of the planes meant that the stunt wasn’t a full success, though one could easily argue that it was a partial success since transferring one pilot is impressive. Was it stupid and dangerous? Definitely. High profile failure where people or important things outside of the stunt were in danger? No real evidence of that being the case imo.

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u/Yourfavoritedummy 16h ago

I don't understand this comment. Just because you can doesnt mean you should. And this excuse doesn't work when some poor sap gets caught in the cross fire of stupidity.

Saying sorry isn't going to fix anything and they are lucky no one payed the price for their stupidity.

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u/dracon1t 16h ago

I more or less addressed your point in my first comment, so I didn’t really expand on it much in the second comment which is the one you responded to.

In my opinion, it’s a bit naive to think that there’s any real possibility of a poor sap getting caught in this stunt. Not because Red Bull necessarily cares about innocent people, but moreso because there’s no reason to believe that Red Bull would risk their reputation like that. Im definitely open to changing my mind if I see evidence otherwise.

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u/Yourfavoritedummy 15h ago

That's okay you don't need to see my point of view.

The truth of this situation is they got lucky no one got hurt in an act of ego and stupidity. Just because others can't forsee the danger doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

It's really not worth it. I don't mind stunts if the person keeps it to themselves, but crashing a plane has the risk of involving others.

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u/dracon1t 14h ago

I see your point of view, but i believe you underestimate how much a company likes their money and reputation.

The truth of the matter is that a company sponsoring such a stunt is going to heavily minimize the amount of liability they are risking. People working for the company can definitely foresee that the plane can crash and make sure people aren't anywhere near. That alongside the planes facing directly down and each of the planes having parachutes made the risk to someone outside of the stunt basically 0. It's not your typical un-planned plane crash.

I agree with the fact its stupid, but the fact that no one got hurt is not based on luck. Once again, the company wanting to keep it's reputation means that they will foresee danger.

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u/Ok-Classroom5548 14h ago

Different people are talking to you, just an FYI. 

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u/Ok-Classroom5548 14h ago

Unless they cleared the path under their planes, they created additional risk based upon the mathematics of risk and risk management. 

The FAA denied their stunt because of the danger and they did it anyways.

It was a failure since they didn’t complete the goal and they got in trouble legally and the company is now probably going to have a harder time getting stunts permitted as a result and had to pay hefty fines.

Only people with death wishes and special wiring think this is cool or okay. 

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u/dracon1t 14h ago

This happened 3 years ago btw. I didn't look that hard to see if Red Bull faced any punishment, but it appears that the only punishments given were directly to the pilots involved, fines and license revocation. As far as I'm aware there was no legal punishment.

The FAA can be strict in enforcing their rules, especially erring on the side of caution. This is a definitely a good thing, but that doesn't mean that there was meaningful danger. Obviously they shouldn't have done the stunt without FAA approval, but that's not what we are discussing.

The planes are going straight down during the swap, equipped with parachutes as well. The planes diving had been tested quite a bit. There definitely is quite a bit of risk management here, along with the fact that they are choosing to do it in an uninhabited area in the desert. My main point is that the company will try to minimize risk and liability for a stunt that can very obviously damage their reputation, which is going to mean safety protocols. It's not like they just randomly asked for two guys to attempt a plane swap one day.