Add to the list of things you need to worry about on a daily basis un-piloted aircraft falling out of the sky.
No, we are not seeing a rash of military jets failing in flight and their pilots ejecting. No, there aren’t airplanes managing to take off on their own and flying around until they go out of control. What we do have is the Millennial generation getting more and more desperate for “views” and “likes” (and monetized sponsorship money).
In the space of five months we have had two incidents of people jumping out of perfectly good aircraft as part of on-line video stunts. You may think jumping out of plane is no big deal, people have been doing that for decades. Well the “hot new trend” is to be the pilot–and only person on-board–jumping out of the aircraft at altitude, leaving no one at the controls.
The first incident came on November 24th of last year, when Trevor Jacob–a self-described “YouTube Stuntman” bailed out of his Taylorcraft over California after it appeared his engine stalled–leaving the plane to fly on for a short time before crashing in a forest. COINCIDENTALLY, Jacob’s plane had video cameras attached to it that were rolling from the moment the engine appeared to quit, all the way to the moment of impact. COINCIDENTALLY, Jacob just happened to be wearing his parachute behind the controls of the plane when it just so happened to suffer engine failure. He too, just COINCIDENTALLY was wearing cameras to capture his jumping from the plane, watching it continue down, and his successful parachute deployment. Jacob then made sure to reclaim the cameras from the crashed aircraft so the video could be posted on YouTube of his AMAZING AND TOTALLY UNEXPECTED brush with death.
Then last month, Red Bull-sponsored skydivers Luke Aikins and Andy Farrington decided to put a new spin on the stunt of jumping from one aircraft and getting into another aircraft during free-fall. It’s a stunt that’s been done hundreds of times over the years, so to guarantee a big audience, Aikins and Farrington decided to become the first PILOTS to switch planes in mid-flight. Both went up by themselves in the two aircraft (featuring huge Red Bull logos), jumped out at 12-thousand feet, and then tried to get behind the controls of the other plane while it was in a dive toward the ground. Farrington was actually successful, and landed his plane safely. Aikins was not so lucky. The plane which he was supposed to take over went into a spin and crashed before he could get to the controls. And the whole thing was streamed live on Hulu and sponsored by Red Bull for an audience of millions.
And while Jacob, Aikins, and Farrington achieved their goals of getting lots of “views and likes”, their videos were unfortunately (for them) also viewed and not liked by fellow pilots and the Federal Aviation Administration. In Jacob’s case it was those fellow pilots that pointed out that he was already preparing to jump from his aircraft before the engine stopped, that he never radioed in an emergency call to air traffic control, and that he made no attempt to restart the engine–which he had plenty of time to do at the altitude he was flying. They could all tell he had staged the entire thing and intentionally crashed his plane. The FAA also reviewed the incident, and has suspended Jacob’s pilots license and fined him.
Meanwhile, Aikins and Farrington are in double hot water as Aikins actually went to the FAA and requested permission to do their stunt–but was denied. After their televised failure, Aikins posted a statement on social media saying he had “made the personal decision to move forward with the plane swap”. I get the feeling that Aikins and Farrington didn’t tell Red Bull, Hulu, and anyone else involved in the streaming disaster that they were all taking part in an illegal operation. The FAA has also suspended the pilots licenses of Aikins and Farrington and fined them $5,000 each. Red Bull may give you wings–but the FAA can take them away.
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that pilots jumping out of planes is the “hot new thing” on social media platforms. Remember the #InMyFeelings “challenge” right before the pandemic? That is where drivers were getting out of their moving vehicles to dance to a Drake song. Sometimes they failed to get back into the car in time, and crashes happened–which COINCIDENTALLY increased viewership of those videos, meaning a “big win” for the poster.
Those of us born in the pre-internet world like to use the phrase “I’m glad there weren’t camera phones around when I was young.” We used to mean that we were glad none of the stupid stuff we did was ever captured on video. Now we mean we’re glad we weren’t able to “influence” other people into trying to do the same stupid stuff. Although, if overly-caffeinated drinks had been around to give us a bunch of money……..
