Extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner, the first skydiver to fall faster than the speed of sound during a 24-mile leap through the stratosphere more than a decade ago, died in a crash along the eastern coast of Italy. He was 56.
Italian firefighters who responded said a paraglider crashed into the side of a swimming pool in the city of Porto Sant Elpidio.
Felix Baumgartner, 56, fell to the ground near the swimming pool of a hotel while flying over the village of Porto Sant’Elpidio in the eastern Marche region.
Porto Sant’Elpidio’s mayor, Massimiliano Ciarpella, said reports suggested Felix Baumgartner may have suffered a sudden medical issue mid-air.
The Austrian daredevil made headlines in 2012 when he broke the world record – and the sound barrier – for the highest-ever skydive, jumping from a balloon more than 39km (128,000 ft) up in the stratosphere.
Felix Baumgartner was described as “a symbol of courage and passion for extreme flights”, by Mayor Ciarpella who offered the town’s condolences for his death.
Fans have left their own tributes beneath one of the skydiver’s final social media posts, a video of him working on the motor of his paraglider.
Another post from around 14:30 local time (13:30 BST) bore the text “too much wind” and featured a picture of a full windsock against a cloudy sky.
The extreme sportsman was known as “Fearless Felix” for his adventurous stunts
He set one of his earliest records in 1999 for the world’s lowest base jump, from the 30m (98ft) high hand of Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue.
In the same year, he set the world record for the highest parachute jump when he launched himself from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.
Then in 2003, he completed a flight across the English Channel with a specially-made jumpsuit with carbon-fibre wings.
But the extreme sportsman was best known for his space leap. Speaking at a media conference after his record-breaking jump, he said “when I was standing there on top of the world, you become so humble”.
“You don’t think about breaking records anymore, you don’t think about gaining scientific data – the only thing that you want is to come back alive.”