Felix Baumgartner, Legendary Extreme Skydiver, Dies at 56 in Paragliding Accident

Felix Baumgartner, the Austrian extreme adventurer famous for his 2012 jump from nearly 40 kilometers above Earth and becoming the first human to break the sound barrier in freefall, died Thursday in a paragliding accident off Italy’s Adriatic coast. He was 56 years old.

His death was confirmed by Red Bull, the energy drink company that sponsored him, as well as Italian authorities.

Baumgartner crashed just meters from a swimming pool in Porto Sant’Elpidio, according to the town’s mayor, Massimiliano Ciarpella. The mayor reported that Baumgartner felt unwell during the flight and lost consciousness upon impact in a popular tourist area. An autopsy was scheduled.

Hours before the accident, Baumgartner posted an Instagram photo showing gray, cloudy skies and a swirling windsock, captioned “too windy.”

Ciarpella described Baumgartner as a “world-renowned figure, a symbol of courage and passion for extreme flight.”

Known affectionately as “Felix the Fearless,” Baumgartner bore a tattoo reading “Born to Fly.” Like many extreme athletes, he balanced his adventurous spirit with a clear awareness of the risks and potential for injury.

“I always pursued goals that no one else had achieved, because even if you got hurt, you did something exceptional and unique,” he told Outside magazine.

“So sometimes,” he added, “you really have to get hurt, to go through the fire — but at least it has to be worth it.”

Charismatic and attractive, Baumgartner joined a long lineage of adventurers who captivated audiences as escape artists, human cannonballs, tightrope walkers, and climbers defying safety gear.

He also became an effective corporate ambassador for Red Bull, which sought to promote a bold and daring image, according to Matt Higgins, author of Bird Dream: Adventures at the Extremes of Human Flight (2014).

Born on April 20, 1969, in Salzburg, Austria, home to Red Bull’s global headquarters, Baumgartner learned to skydive at 16. He honed his skills in the Austrian army before performing parachute exhibitions for Red Bull starting in 1988.

At the time of their partnership, Red Bull was a relatively unknown company, and Baumgartner embodied the image they wanted to project, receiving financial support in return.

Since then, Red Bull has reshaped sports sponsorship by going beyond traditional advertising to owning franchises in motorsports and football.

Baumgartner also helped popularize BASE jumping, an extreme sport involving parachute jumps from buildings, antennas, bridges, cliffs, and other fixed points.

He elevated what was once a fringe, often unauthorized activity into mainstream awareness with feats like the highest BASE jump from a building—approximately 452 meters from Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Towers in 1999—and the lowest, about 28 meters from the hand of Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue in 2007.

“Back then, no one got paid to do this kind of thing,” Higgins noted. “He was a pioneer in professionalizing BASE jumping,” even as some peers worried that increased attention might lead to stricter bans.

Outside of extreme sports, Baumgartner was no stranger to controversy. In 2010, he was fined for punching a truck driver during a traffic dispute. He also voiced critical views on LGBTQ rights, climate change policies, and migration laws in Germany and Austria. He supported Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s right-wing nationalist leader, advocating for what he called a “moderate dictatorship” instead of democratic governance.

Despite these political stances, Baumgartner remained a largely respected figure within the extreme sports community. In 2003, he crossed the English Channel using a carbon-fiber wing. His most famous feat came on October 14, 2012, during the Red Bull Stratos project, when he ascended to the stratosphere in a helium balloon capsule before jumping from about 38 kilometers above Earth and landing safely in Roswell, New Mexico.

During that jump, he reached a top speed of 1,342 kilometers per hour (Mach 1.24), momentarily losing control before stabilizing. The freefall lasted four minutes and 20 seconds, with his parachute deploying about 1,600 meters above the ground. He landed successfully, setting multiple world records and providing valuable data to aid future astronauts facing extreme high-altitude emergencies.

His altitude record was surpassed on October 24, 2014, by Google executive Alan Eustace, who jumped from over 40 kilometers.

Reflecting on his historic leap, Baumgartner said it was difficult to describe traveling faster than sound “because you don’t feel it.” He admitted the jump “was tougher than I expected.”

“Believe me,” he said, “when you’re up there, at the top of the world, you become very humble. It’s no longer about breaking records or gathering scientific data. It’s about coming home.”