Felix Baumgartner, the daredevil who made a record-breaking parachute soar from the stratosphere in 2012, died Thursday in a paragliding accident in Italy, a neighborhood mayor confirmed. Firefighters who responded to the scene stated they discovered a paraglider that had crashed into the aspect of a swimming pool within the metropolis of Porto Sant Elpidio, on central Italy’s jap coast.
“Our neighborhood is deeply affected by the tragic disappearance of Felix Baumgartner, a determine of worldwide prominence, an emblem of braveness and keenness for excessive flight,” the city’s Mayor, Massimiliano Ciarpella, stated on Fb.
Baumgartner, 56, made international headlines in 2012 when he was lifted into the stratosphere, about 24 miles up, in a capsule carried by a helium balloon, after which parachuted right down to a touchdown in New Mexico. In the course of the soar, he broke the file for quickest free fall, descending at about 843.6 mph and turning into the primary human to interrupt the sound barrier with out the help of a automobile.
KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP through Getty Pictures
Initially from Austria, Baumgartner started skydiving at age 16 and additional honed his expertise within the Austrian navy, based on his private web site. In 1988, he teamed up with Purple Bull, which sponsored the stratosphere soar beneath the Stratos mission and lots of different daring feats.
The coaching and planning for the 2012 Stratos soar took 5 years. Among the many data Baumgartner would break that day was highest soar, which had been held by Air Drive Capt. Joe Kittinger since 1960, when he leapt from an open-air gondola basket that rose to 102,000 ft. Kittinger would go on to coach Baumgartner for the record-breaking Stratos soar. (Baumgartner’s peak file was damaged two years later.)
Along with skydiving, Baumgartner was an achieved BASE jumper, breaking two data in 1999: Highest BASE soar and lowest BASE soar. The low soar, which he took from one of many palms of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, was solely 95 ft. The excessive soar was taken from the 88th ground of the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, though that file has since been damaged and is presently held by the late Valery Rozov, who jumped from Cho Oyu in 2016.
Baumgartner was additionally a helicopter pilot and was a part of Purple Bull’s aerial acrobatics group.
Helmut Tucek through Getty Pictures 
“Ever since I used to be a toddler, I’ve all the time wished to leap out of a aircraft,” Baumgartner informed Purple Bull in an interview after turning into a licensed helicopter pilot.
“For Purple Bull Stratos, we had a really lengthy listing of ‘what ifs,’ in different phrases eventualities that would occur and the way we might cope with them in an emergency. The listing saved getting longer and longer. I used to be solely afraid of the issues that weren’t on the listing. The issues we had not considered,” he informed Purple Bull, including, “to at the present time, I abort missions if the situations aren’t proper.”
Whereas Baumgartner’s stunts impressed tens of millions, his political beliefs have been identified to trigger controversy. On social media, he mocked local weather activists and others who sought to restrict the consequences of local weather change, and voiced opposition to LGBTQ rights, based on the AFP information company. He additionally as soon as advised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán ought to obtain the Nobel Peace Prize for his anti-immigration insurance policies.
