He had continually challenged his limits by pushing the physical boundaries of the human flight, until he was the first to break the wall of free body sound, up to the jump from the stratosphere. Felix Baumgartner, 56 years old, Austrian, died today in the Marche in an accident in Porto Sant’Elpidio (Fermo) while in flight with a motor paragliding. He lost control of the vehicle, perhaps because of an illness, falling on the edge of a swimming pool of a accommodation facility. For the record man, a trivial accident fatal. They will be the coroner, with the autoptic investigations, and the National Agency for the security of flight to clarify the causes. The recordman was staying in a accommodation facility with a detention together with his wife, who came to the tragedy site immediately after the tragedy.
In the afternoon the 56 -year -old had turned on his paragliding: short the journey he was walking before the crash that took place around 4 pm when the vehicle crashed on the edge of a swimming pool, also hitting a girl, animator in the structure. Fortunately, nothing serious for her who was still transported to the hospital for the investigations and the necessary treatments.
For the 56 -year -old, however, there was nothing to do; The attempts of the 118 health workers to revive him, among the bewilderment of those present. A first hypothesis is that the sportsman was caught by a fatal illness that made him lose control of the aircraft, then crashed into the Elpidiense accommodation facility. But a technical failure or unexpected in flight are not excluded to which the famous Austrian base-jumper has not managed to remedy. All the hypotheses are currently being examined by the investigators. Together with the health workers, the firefighters who made the area also intervened at the site of the tragedy, also considering the loss of fuel from the paragliding engine.
The same men of 115 informed the National Flight Security Agency (ANSV) which has competence on the air accidents that will make investigations on the dynamics of the accident. In the meantime, the carabinieri circumscribed the area while the paragliding was seized. Baumgartner, a paratrooper and internationally renowned base-jumper, was a star in the world of extreme sports, going to the physical boundaries of human flight. Since his flight in free fall, unprecedented, through the sleeve channel in 2003.
With a team formed by the world top of scientists, engineers and doctors, he had prepared himself to rewrite history and make aeronautical research progress with the Red Bull Stratos. He had started with Skydive (sports parachuting) at 16, showing his skills in performances and team competitions of the Austrian army. In 1988 he had started to perform with the Skydive for Red Bull. In the nineties Baumgartner had closed with traditional parachuting and focusing on more challenging adventures such as jumping base.
His masterpiece had been the extreme sport event of the century: he had successfully completed the Red Bull Stratos jump with over 24 miles (more than 39 kilometers), with an estimated speed in 833.9 miles per hour (1,342.8 kilometers per hour) during 4 minutes and 22 seconds of free fall. His leap from the “edge of the space” had been acclaimed all over the world. With that company – on 14 October 2012 -, he had established three records: that of the maximum height reached by an aerostatic ball with crew, the greater height of an aerostatic ball throw and the maximum speed reached by a man in free fall. He was the first man to break the speed of sound (1,110 km/h) outside a vehicle. The supersonic free fall had earned him, in 2013, the title of “Peoplès Choice Adventure” of the year. An amazing career, which ended tragically with a paragliding accident.