ROME (Reuters) — Austrian extreme sports pioneer Felix Baumgartner, famed for a record-breaking 2012 skydive from the edge of space, died on Thursday in a paragliding accident in central Italy, local police said. He was 56.
Baumgartner lost control of his motorized paraglider while flying over Porto Sant’Elpidio in Italy’s central Marche region, and fell to the ground near the swimming pool of a hotel. The reasons for the accident were unclear.
Porto Sant’Elpidio’s mayor, Massimiliano Ciarpella, said reports suggested he may have suffered a sudden medical issue mid-air, and offered the town’s condolences for the death of ‘a symbol of courage and passion for extreme flights.’
The Austrian made headlines around the world in October 2012 when, wearing a specially made suit, he jumped from a balloon 24 miles (38 km) above Earth, becoming the first skydiver to break the sound barrier, typically measured at more than 690 mph.
He made the historic jump over Roswell, New Mexico, reaching a peak speed of over 833 mph (1,343 kph), on the 65th anniversary of legendary American pilot Chuck Yeager’s flight shattering the sound barrier on Oct. 14, 1947.
The self-styled ‘God of the Skies’ started parachuting as a teenager before taking up the extreme sport of BASE jumping.
His long career of daredevil jumps included skydiving across the English Channel and parachuting off the Petronas Towers in Malaysia.
In Austria he was also known for courting controversy with views that included expressing support for dictatorship as a system of government.
Baumgartner was fined 1,500 euros after he punched a Greek truck driver in the face during a 2010 altercation that broke out in a traffic jam near Salzburg.