Crash with paraglider
The cause of the accident at Felix Baumgartner is determined
Updated on October 6th, 2025 – 5:31 p.m.Reading time: 2 min.
So far, what the deadly fall of the Austrian was due has remained unclear. Now further investigations brought final certainty.
Almost three months after Felix Baumgartner’s fatal accident in Italy, the results of the investigation are available. According to the public prosecutor, the Austrian extreme athlete, who had fatally crashed on July 17, 2025 on a flight with his motorized paraglider in Porto Sant’elpidio in the province of Fermo as a result of a pilot error.
As Fermos Prosecutor Raffaele Iannella confirmed at the request of the “Bild”, a technical report showed that “the accident is due to a pure human error”. The paraglider was in perfect condition and did not show any technical defects.
Accordingly, there was a rapid loss of height when Baumgartner’s aircraft got into a collapse of falls. The 55-year-old did not manage to control the umbrella from this situation. The rescue umbrella was only triggered shortly before the impact.
According to the investigators, Baumgartner did not use the correct technology in the decisive phase to stabilize the flight position. For this, a “constant and determined activity of the right tax line” would have been necessary, Iannella said. The failure led to loss of control, which means that the spiral could no longer be ended.
The public prosecutor has now applied for the proceedings. The technical report had already been sent to the representatives of the relatives. For the investigations, an expert from Rome had been consulted in order to determine the exact cause of the accident.
Baumgartner had become known worldwide through his spectacular stratosphere jump on October 14, 2012. At that time he jumped from a capsule from a height of around 39 kilometers and broke the sound barrier in free fall. His record was exceeded two years later.