Death of Felix Baumgartner, former record holder for the highest jump and first man to break the sound barrier in freefall

He was constantly pushing the boundaries. From the lowest possible base jump, from the hand of Christ the Redeemer, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, less than 30 meters above the ground, to his record for the highest parachute jump in the world, 39 kilometers above the ground, Felix Baumgartner spent his life defying the laws of gravity. "I always had the desire to be in the air," he confided, to explain his irresistible attraction to freefall.

His passion proved fatal. The 56-year-old Austrian died on Thursday, July 17, in a paramotor accident in Italy 's Marche region, where he was spending a family vacation. The circumstances of his death have not been determined, but according to the daily Corriere della Sera , the extreme flying icon suffered a seizure at the controls of his aircraft and died before crashing into the swimming pool of a hotel on the Adriatic coast, slightly injuring a tourist who was inside.

From a life spent in the air—Baumgartner was also a helicopter pilot and balloonist—history will remember one date: October 14, 2012. On that day, the Austrian, wearing a pressurized suit similar to those worn by astronauts, launched into the void from a capsule towed by a helium-filled balloon, to an altitude of 39,045 meters, in the upper layers of the stratosphere, above Roswell, New Mexico. At this altitude, the curvature of the Earth is clearly visible. Fascinating and frightening at the same time.

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