Felix Baumgartner’s Fatal Paragliding Crash

Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner, famous for the 2012 Red Bull Stratos project, became the first person to break the sound barrier in freefall after jumping from nearly 39 kilometers above Earth over New Mexico. On July 17, 2025, Baumgartner died at age 56 while flying a motorized paraglider above Italy. Investigators later determined that human error caused the crash, as he lost control and entered a spiral from which he could not recover.

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