Felix Baumgartner, known for his record-breaking skydive from the edge of space, has died in a paragliding accident aged 56.
Baumgartner lost control of his motorised 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, local police said.
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 38km (24 miles) 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, on the 65th anniversary of legendary American pilot Chuck Yeager’s flight shattering the sound barrier on 14 October 1947.
“When I was standing there on top of the world, you become so humble, you do not think about of breaking records anymore, you do not think of about gaining scientific data. The only thing you want is to come back alive,” he said after landing.
The altitude he jumped from also marked the highest-ever for a skydiver, shattering the previous record set in 1960 by Joe Kittinger, who served as an adviser to Baumgartner during his feat.
Baumgartner’s altitude record stood for two years until Google executive Alan Eustace set new marks for the highest free-fall jump and greatest free-fall distance.
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 after he punched a Greek truck driver in the face during a 2010 altercation that broke out in a traffic jam near Salzburg.