Felix Baumgartner, an Austrian BASE jumper and skydiver renowned for his record-breaking jump from the stratosphere, has died while paragliding in Italy, local media reported.
Baumgartner, 56, lost control of his paraglider and crashed into a hotel swimming pool in the coastal town of Porto Sant’Elpidio, CNN affiliate SkyTG24 reported.
The apparatus struck a woman who was not seriously injured, according to SkyTG24.
Italy’s national broadcaster RAI reported that authorities were working to determine the exact cause of the crash.
CNN has reached out to Baumgartner’s representatives.
The mayor of Porto Sant’Elpidio, Massimiliano Ciarpella, said on his official Facebook page that his community was “deeply affected” by the death of Baumgartner, who he called a “symbol of courage.”
Baumgartner, who had BASE jumped from landmarks like the Petronas Towers in Malaysia and the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, achieved international recognition in 2012 when he broke a world record by skydiving from a pressurised pod about 39km above the ground.
A decade later, he described to CNN how he felt at that moment.
“I’m standing there on top of the world outside of a capsule in space and in the stratosphere. I looked around the sky above me was completely black,” Baumgartner told CNN Sport’s Patrick Snell.
“I was really trying to inhale that moment,” he added.
As he fell to Earth, his speed reached more than 1350km/hr, breaking the sound barrier.
The so-called Red Bull Stratos freefall took six years to plan as the team worked out every detail of the jump.
“We thought, we’re going to build the capsule, build the pressure suit, practice for a while, and then we go all the way up to the stratosphere and come back to Earth at supersonic speed,” said Baumgartner.
“Sometimes we’d go into a meeting with three problems and then leave that meeting eight hours later with another five … and no solution for the previous problems.”
To get Baumgartner up to the stratosphere, his team had to construct a helium balloon the size of 33 football pitches, weighing 1682kg. It took as many as 20 people to move without damaging the balloon’s material, which was 10 times thinner than a sandwich bag.
But the biggest threat to the project was perhaps the most unforeseen – Baumgartner’s mental fortitude.
The suit had to be both pressurised and able to handle temperatures of -72 degrees.
“It’s very uncomfortable,” said Baumgartner.
“You have a total lack of mobility. It always feels like you’re breathing through a pillow. You’re completely separated from the outside world. So once the visor is down, all you can hear is yourself breathing.”
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Soon after landing, Baumgartner said he struggled to process his emotions as he approached the Earth.
“I had tears in my eyes when I was coming back a couple of times because you’re sitting there and you thought about that moment so many times, you know, how it would feel and how it would look like,” he said.
“And this is way bigger than I had anticipated.”
