[HN Gopher] FAA revokes licenses of pilots in failed Red Bull pl...
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       FAA revokes licenses of pilots in failed Red Bull plane swap
        
       Author : Stratoscope
       Score  : 24 points
       Date   : 2022-05-12 19:22 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (thehill.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (thehill.com)
        
       | breakingcups wrote:
       | "According to the FAA, it said it had denied Red Bull's request
       | for an exemption from an FAA review in the case because it could
       | not show the stunt was not a safety risk."
        
         | gregoryl wrote:
         | The level of rigor in making planes (even light aircraft) safe
         | vs. "we tried this a few times, should be fine" are very far
         | apart. Hard to fault them.
        
       | mwint wrote:
       | Maybe the FAA should find a 99.9% empty (100 mi)^2 square in the
       | middle of Nevada or something, and designate it "do whatever you
       | want, can't hurt anything anyway".
        
         | dharmab wrote:
         | They did, but you've got the join the Air Force to use it.
         | 
         | https://www.nellis.af.mil/Units/NTTR/
        
       | Someone1234 wrote:
       | They very likely would have got suspended even if this succeeded.
       | 
       | - The lead pilot requested an exemption for the stunt from the
       | FAA, which the agency denied.
       | 
       | - The lead pilot made a "personal decision to move forward with
       | [the] plane swap."
       | 
       | - "I regret not sharing this information with my team and those
       | who supported me."
       | 
       | - The FAA are also proposing a $4,932 fine.
       | 
       | There's no two sides to this one, you cannot do a highly
       | dangerous stunt without the relevant authorities signing off on
       | the plan (or more specifically ignoring them when they tell you
       | "no"), and then expect no consequences. They're just lucky the
       | consequences are only likely to be civil in nature (i.e.
       | suspensions and fines).
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | kazinator wrote:
       | You need an atomic_swap(), which at no point allows a situation
       | to be observed whereby a pilot is not in a pilot's seat.
        
       | cookingmyserver wrote:
       | This (the crash, not the revocations) _might_ be the worst, most
       | embarrassing outcome for the FAA. Had the stunt gone completely
       | right they could have just put the hammer down on the pilots and
       | said  "it could have gone wrong and people could have got hurt!".
       | But we got to see what happened when things went wrong. We saw,
       | even in failure, no one got hurt, and it doesn't seem like anyone
       | was close to getting hurt. Is this luck or were the pilots right
       | the entire time, planning for failure and ensuring no one would
       | be harmed even if they failed? Still doesn't excuse them for
       | going forward despite the exemption being rejected, but a
       | successful failure raises doubt as to the FAA's ability to
       | evaluate risk, which only compounds the current Trent Palmer
       | situation.
        
         | Dayshine wrote:
         | They crashed a plane! Which means they had completely lost
         | control! What was stopping the plane from randomly pitching up
         | and flying off towards people?
         | 
         | This seems to prove the opposite, that it was a dangerous stunt
         | that the faa were right to deny and very luckily nobody was
         | hurt
        
           | cookingmyserver wrote:
           | I am going to assume you made the comment from position of
           | ignorance on how they executed the stunt. They used a very
           | very large airbrake to slow the aircraft down after pitching
           | down into a near vertical dive and letting prop windmill. The
           | risk of the plane flying away was negligible.
        
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       (page generated 2022-05-12 23:02 UTC)