A Wing and a Prayer: Safety Concerns Over Red Bull's 55-Year Old Seaplane

March 30, 2009— -- The 55-year old seaplane used to market the Red Bull energy drink at major sporting events and air shows was decommissioned and disposed of by the Coast Guard in 1976 because they considered it no longer safe to fly given the age of its wings.

But it flies over the heads of hundreds of thousands of people a year under an "experimental airworthiness certificate" granted by the FAA in 2008.

In a written response to questions, a Red Bull spokesperson, Patrice Radden, said: "Neither Red Bull nor any of its pilots or flight crews have or would operate an aircraft that is known to be unsafe or in an unsafe manner."

Although the FAA certificate specifically requires the Red Bull plane to "avoid densely populated areas," the plane flew over festivities surrounding the Super Bowl last month in Tampa.

The aircraft is a Grumman-built HU-16E "Flying Albatross."

New Orleans Saints football star Reggie Bush, a Red Bull paid spokesperson, was filmed flying the plane in the left pilot's seat, climbing into the plexi-glass nose of the aircraft and sticking his head out of an open window.

"I stuck my head out the window which never in a million years I thought I would be able to do," Bush says on a Red Bull promotional video posted on the company's website.

Earlier this month, the Red Bull plane flew over thousands of college students on spring break at Lake Havasu, Arizona.

A spokesman for the FAA said the agency was "comfortable" with the use of the airplane, even if it is flying over the heads of thousands of people a year.

Red Bull says the plane is operated in full compliance with FAA regulations.

"It's terribly unsafe because the wing could fall off at any time," said Bill McNease, a former FAA safety inspector who helped initiate an earlier investigation of the plane when he was with the FAA in 2006.

"The long wing versions of this airplane have a definite, if you want to call it, drop dead time. When they reach a certain amount of flight hours, that's it," said McNease in an interview with ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross for Good Morning America.