Highlights
- Veteran skydiver Felix Baumgartner has died aged 56 in a paragliding accident in Italy
- He reportedly lost control of his glider before crashing into a campsite in Le Marche
- Baumgartner had posted about strong winds shortly before the incident
- A woman was also injured but her condition is not believed to be serious
- Baumgartner famously broke the sound barrier in freefall during a 2012 space jump
Pioneering skydiver killed in freak mid-air incident
Extreme sports icon Felix Baumgartner has died following a paragliding accident in Le Marche, central Italy. The 56-year-old Austrian daredevil reportedly lost control of his paraglider after taking off from near Fermo and crashed into a campsite swimming pool. Emergency responders said he went into cardiac arrest and could not be revived. A woman injured in the crash was taken to hospital, though her injuries were not life-threatening.
“Too much wind”: Last social media post before fatal flight
Hours before the crash, Baumgartner had shared a video of himself paragliding with the caption “too much wind”. The footage showed him circling over a field, raising concerns that conditions may have been unstable. Italian media reported that he felt unwell before take-off, but the exact cause of the accident remains unclear.
The man who fell from space
Baumgartner rose to international fame in 2012 when he jumped from a helium balloon at the edge of space, plummeting 114,829 feet (35 km) above New Mexico. The feat saw him reach speeds of 843 mph, becoming the first person to break the sound barrier in freefall. Spectators on the ground even reported hearing a sonic boom. He set three world records during the mission, including highest freefall, fastest freefall speed, and highest manned balloon flight.
Career of world-firsts and boundary-pushing feats
Baumgartner began skydiving at 16 and went on to set 14 world records. He was the first person to base-jump from global landmarks including Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Towers, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, France’s Millau Viaduct, Sweden’s Turning Torso and Taipei 101. In 2003, he became the first person to cross the English Channel in a wingsuit.
In a 2012 interview, he spoke candidly about the dangers of high-altitude jumps, saying, “The parachute could malfunction or you could flat spin, which pushes all your blood into your skull… at a certain RPM, your blood only has one way out – through your eyeballs.”
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