Don’t try this at home… or anywhere else. — Dan

It’s a scene you’ve seen on TV or in movies dozens of times. Something goes wrong on a single-person plane. The aircraft is going to crash, and the pilot doesn’t want to go down with it, so he ejects. He coasts safely to the ground, aided by a parachute, as seen in the screenshot above. And the pilot’s story continues.

That’s the typical cadence of such events — plane problems, ejection, plane crash but pilot lands safely. But in the picture above, that’s not actually what happened — well, at least, not in that order.

In April 2022, two cousins, Luke Aikins and Andy Farrington, decided to do something that no one had ever done before — and for good reason, because it’s colossally difficult and probably stupid, too. They each decided to take a single-person plane skyward at the same time, and then switch planes — in midair.

Aikins and Farrington, in their defense, were professional daredevils — both were longtime pilots and skydivers. Farrington had logged more than 27,000 jumps and 6,000 hours as a pilot before this stunt; Aikins had already made a name for himself in 2016 when he set a world record by freefalling from 25,000 feet without a parachute. But what they did over Eloy, Arizona on April 24 of that year was something no one else had ever attempted.

The stunt, sponsored by energy drink Red Bull, was ambitious. The idea, as ABC News reported, was for each pilot to fly his own Cessna 182 to an altitude of 14,000 feet, pitch both planes into a synchronized nosedive, stop the engines, and then jump out. Custom airbrake systems would hold the planes in a controlled descent while Aikins and Farrington skydived toward each other's aircraft, climbed into the cockpits, disengaged the airbrakes, restarted the engines, and flew away. The whole thing would be livestreamed on Hulu — some outtakes can be seen below. Aikins said he'd been dreaming of the stunt for 22 years, ever since he saw a photo in an aviation magazine.

But there was a problem. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) refused to permit the stunt. By rule — and for very good reason! — planes have to have at least one pilot on them at all times, absent an emergency situation (where, let’s face it, the rules no longer matter anyway). Two days before the scheduled attempt, the agency denied Aikins' request for an exemption from that regulation. According to NBC News, the FAA concluded that granting the exemption "would not be in the public interest" and that it "cannot find that the proposed operation would not adversely affect safety."

But Aikins and Farrington went ahead anyway. And things went wrong. Farrington was able to jump out of his plane and successfully take control of his cousin’s, but Aikins couldn’t. The second plane crashed into the Arizona desert; Aikins, as seen above, parachuted safely to the earth below. The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the crash and concluded that the unoccupied plane had exceeded its critical angle of attack, stalled, entered an inverted spin, and hit the ground.

The FAA was not amused. On May 10, 2022, the agency issued emergency revocation orders to both pilots, stripping them of their commercial pilot certificates and other credentials. Both were told they would have to wait a year before reapplying. The agency also assessed Aikins a civil penalty of $4,932. Aikins filed an emergency appeal, though the outcome has not been made public.

Aikins had said before the attempt that his goal was to "inspire the world and show that anything is possible." He was half right. The stunt proved that some things are possible — but also that the FAA really does mean it when they say no.

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Today’s Bonus fact: The 2021 James Bond movie No Time to Die features a car chase over cobblestone roads in Matera, Italy. (You can watch it here.) It’s hard to do car chases safely over cobblestones — tires don’t grip the road well. The solution was something you can find at just about any grocery store. Mark Higgins, the stunt car driver, explained it to Car and Driver magazine: "We poured Coca-Cola on the ground to get some grip. The Coke seems to work better than anything. It was incredible how well it was working."

From the Archives: Hey, Let's Crash Two Trains Together!: Another stupid stunt gone wrong.

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And thanks! — Dan