Crash with a paraglider
The cause of Felix Baumgartner’s accident has been determined
Updated on October 7, 2025 – 12:02 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
What caused the Austrian’s fatal fall remained unclear. Now further investigations brought final certainty.
The results of the investigation are available almost three months after Felix Baumgartner’s fatal accident in Italy. According to the public prosecutor’s office, the Austrian extreme athlete who had a fatal accident while flying his motorized paraglider in Porto Sant’Elpidio in the province of Fermo on July 17, 2025 crashed as a result of pilot error.
As Fermo’s prosecutor Raffaele Iannella confirmed at the request of “Bild”, a technical report showed that “the accident was due to a pure human error”. The paraglider was in perfect condition and had no technical defects.
Accordingly, there was a rapid loss of altitude when Baumgartner’s aircraft went into a spin. The 56-year-old was unable to steer the glider out of this situation. The rescue parachute was only triggered shortly before the impact.
According to investigators, Baumgartner did not use the correct technique to stabilize the flight attitude in the crucial phase. This would have required “constant and determined operation of the right control line,” explained Iannella. The failure led to a loss of control, which meant the spiral of falling could no longer be stopped.
The public prosecutor’s office has since requested that the proceedings be discontinued. The technical report has already been sent to the representatives of the relatives. An expert from Rome was called in for the investigation to determine the exact cause of the accident.
Baumgartner became known worldwide for his spectacular stratospheric jump on October 14, 2012. At that time he jumped out of a capsule from a height of around 39 kilometers and broke the sound barrier in free fall. Two years later his record was surpassed.