Experimental aircraft isn’t limited to large jet liners, it’s a classification of aircraft that have been self built and not certified by a federal agency. Sometimes it can be as simple as someone building their own helicopter out of a box or someone tinkering in their garage. In this case it was a small jet powered aircraft that was built from scratch and being flown around the Mojave Desert to test the aircraft.
In the video that is apart of a Redbull TV series ‘Breaking The Day’ we see this such aircraft flying around an airport in the Mojave Desert and while on approach losing engine power on one side of the aircraft. This caused the aircraft to bank severely to one side and sent it straight at some airplanes.
This airport is an airplane graveyard and all the planes were unoccupied sitting stationary waiting for them to be broken up or resold, so no one was in danger except for the pilot.
In the short video you can see the pilot banking away from the planes trying to regain control of the aircraft with just one engine but steadily losing altitude going right over the tops of these planes. He managed to miss most of the planes and hit a shed instead.
The pilot turned out to actually be alright after the crash with exception of a cut and some bumps but intact and alert. Being a test pilot is scary work, not all planes are built with the precision that large jetliners are and there is always the risk that it may break up or lose engine power.
The longer video is available on Redbull TV’s website and it’s is worth a watch of the entire documentary on this event.
