{"id":270141,"date":"2025-07-17T19:52:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T19:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/270141\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T19:52:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T19:52:10","slug":"extreme-skydiver-baumgartner-dies-in-paragliding-accident-dw-07-17-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/270141\/","title":{"rendered":"Extreme skydiver Baumgartner dies in paragliding accident \u2013 DW \u2013 07\/17\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/austria\/t-18949575\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Austrian<\/a> extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner, who <a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/baumgartners-jump-through-the-stratosphere\/a-16293847\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">jumped down to earth from the stratosphere in a 2012 stunt<\/a>, died in a paragliding accident in the eastern <a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/italy\/t-18949672\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Italian<\/a> town of Porto Sant\u2019Elpidio on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>According to local media, the 56-year-old lost consciousness while in flight and then lost control of his paraglider, crashing into a hotel pool and lightly injuring a young female employee.<\/p>\n<p>Just hours before, he had posted an image in his Instagram story captioned: &#8220;Too much wind.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The energy drink\u00a0company Red Bull, which sponsored many of Baumgartner&#8217;s exploits, confirmed his death to Austrian public broadcaster ORF, while the Austrian foreign ministry confirmed the reports to Germany&#8217;s dpa news agency.<\/p>\n<p>Felix Baumgartner&#8217;s jump from space<\/p>\n<p>Born in Salzburg, Baumgartner made headlines as a spectacular base-jumper for many years, jumping from iconic structures such as the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur and the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro.<\/p>\n<p>Baumgartner shot to global fame in October 2012 when he jumped from a helium balloon almost 39 kilometers (24 miles) above the Earth \u2013 the highest manned balloon flight and the <a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/austrian-skydiver-breaks-records-sound-barrier\/a-16305927\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">highest ever freefall at the time<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>He reached a maximum speed of 1,342.8 km\/h (834 mph), breaking the sound barrier.<\/p>\n<p><img data-format=\"MASTER_LANDSCAPE\" data-id=\"73317371\" data-url=\"https:\/\/static.dw.com\/image\/73317371_${formatId}.jpg\" data-aspect-ratio=\"16\/9\" alt=\"Felix Baumgartner jumping out of the capsule for his record 39-kilometer jump\" style=\"padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; max-height: 0;\"\/>Felix Baumgartner leapt from a capsule more than 39 kilometers above the Earth in 2012Image: Red Bull Content Pool\/ABACA\/IMAGO<\/p>\n<p>Baumgartner, who had a tattoo on his right arm reading &#8220;born to fly,&#8221;\u00a0regularly posted videos of his paragliding flights on social media.<\/p>\n<p>He once described his passion for adventure with the words: &#8220;I belong to the air, I was born for these emotions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Controversial political views<\/p>\n<p>In recent years, he made headlines of a different sort with <a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/rb-leipzig-red-bull-ceo-dietrich-mateschitz-and-politics-its-complicated\/a-50208315\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">controversial political statements<\/a>, criticizing German and Austrian migration policies and opining that a &#8220;moderate dictatorship&#8221; would be preferable to a democracy, in which &#8220;you can&#8217;t move anything.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In 2016, he recommended Hungarian Prime Minister <a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/viktor-orban\/t-38337120\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Viktor Orban<\/a> for the Nobel Peace Prize and endorsed a right-wing populist candidate for the Austrian presidency.<\/p>\n<p>Edited by: Kieran Burke<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Austrian extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner, who jumped down to earth from the stratosphere in a 2012 stunt, died&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-270141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114870324026404570","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}