Misfortune in Italy
Record sky jumper Felix Baumgartner is dead
Updated on July 17th, 2025 – 8:15 p.m.Reading time: 2 min.
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The extreme athlete fell into a pool during a parachute jump in Italy and died. The circumstances of the accident have so far been unclear.
Felix Baumgartner completed a parachute jump in Italy – and did not survive. As the Italian news agency Ansa reports, the 56-year-old died when jumping on the coast of Fermo. According to this, Baumgartner fell into a swimming pool in a resort in Porto Sant’elpidio. Baumgartner died, a young woman was injured. She was hospitalized, but is not in a critical condition.
video | Baumgartner’s record flight in the video
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The tragedy is said to have occurred around 4 p.m. Details on the exact course of the accident have not yet been known. How the misfortune could occur is unclear. Supposedly the Austrian lost control of his aircraft due to a sudden discomfort and is said to have already been dead when it was impact. A few hours before his death, Baumgartner posted a story on Instagram.
Baumgartner became internationally known for his spectacular stratospheric jump on October 14, 2012. The Austrian extreme athlete jumped from an altitude of almost 39 kilometers above the earth from a capsule that had climbed with a helium balloon. Baumgartner broke through the sound barrier in the free case as the first person in a single flight and reached a speed of over 1,300 km/h.
The project was called “Red Bull Stratos” and was broadcast live worldwide. It was a combination of scientific experiment and extreme sports.
He had already drawn attention to himself with spectacular jumps. In April 1999 he jumped from the 88th floor of the Petronas Tower in Kuala Lumpur. In the same year he also jumped with a parachute from the Christ statue in Rio de Janeiro. In 2003 Baumgartner was the first person to cross the English Channel from Dover to Calais in gliding.