Austrian sky diver and base jumper Felix Baumgartner poses for a photo during a conference in Kuwait City on December 11, 2013. Photo by YASSER AL-ZAYYAT / AFP.
Rome: At the age of 56, Felix Baumgartner, the Austrian daredevil who famously jumped from the edge of the Earth's atmosphere in a 2012 stunt, died on Thursday in Italy, the emergency services there announced.
A senior official with the emergency services in the Marches region, northern Italy, confirmed his death to AFP.
Police at Porto Sant'Elpidio, on Italy's Adriatic coast, had identified Baumgartner, he said.
While he was not able to say what had been the cause of death, a report in the Il Corriere della Sera daily said that Baumgartner had lost control of his paraglider after suffering a malaise.
He landed in the swimming pool of a holiday residence at Porto Sant'Elpidio, slightly injuring a young woman.
The accident happened at around 4:00 pm, the paper reported.
Baumgartner's dramatic 2012 jump from a capsule more than 39 kilometres (24 miles) above the Earth was the most spectacular of a string of record-breaking stunts.
Austrian daredevil "fearless Felix" Baumgartner, stunned fans around the world by breaking the sound barrier in a hair-raising dive from the fringe of space more than a decade ago.
Baumgartner's dramatic 2012 jump from a capsule more than 39 kilometres (24 miles) above the Earth propelled the extreme adventure-seeker into the record books.
Sporting a "born to fly" tattoo, Baumgartner recorded the fastest freefall by leaping from the capsule and reaching a top speed of 1,357.6 kilometres (843.6 miles) per hour.
His two childhood dreams were to be a skydiver and a helicopter pilot.
"I always had the desire to be in the air," Austrian media quoted Baumgartner as saying. "I climbed trees, I wanted to see the world from above."
Baumgartner said that his training for the legendary Red Bull Stratos jump, which ended safely in the desert of the US state of New Mexico, had begun 26 years earlier, in 1986, when he first jumped out of an aeroplane.
'At home in the air'
In his youth, Baumgartner, who was born in the Austrian city of Salzburg, worked as a car mechanic and repaired motorcycles as he searched for ways to take to the sky.
Having completed his first skydive in his teens, he improved his skills in the Austrian military. Over time, he built up an impressive portfolio of stunts.
One of his first records was in 1999 for the lowest BASE dive from the hand of Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil, which is 95 feet (29 metres) above the ground.
BASE is an acronym for four things that can be jumped from: buildings, antennas, spans and earth.
A licenced helicopter pilot and gas balloonist whose hobbies included boxing and climbing, he twice also set world records for the highest BASE jump from a building.
In 2003, he completed the first winged "freefall crossing" of the English Channel, leaping out of an aircraft and flying the rest of the way to from England to Calais in northern France with a pair of carbon wings.
Though never quite in the limelight as much again as in 2012, Baumgartner continued to seek thrills throughout his life, flying loopings with helicopters and driving race cars.
'Biggest dream'
Despite the dangers, the telegenic Baumgartner never seemed to fear having to pay the ultimate price for his passion -- stressing that it was all about doing your homework.
"I hate it if someone calls me a thrill-seeker or an adrenaline junkie because I am not. I like the whole planning," Baumgartner said ahead of the 2012 stunt.
"When you're standing there on top of the world, you become so humble... The only thing is you want to come back alive," Baumgartner told reporters.
Shortly before leaping, in footage beamed live around the world on a crackly radio link recalling Neil Armstrong's first words on the Moon, Baumgartner had said: "Sometimes you have (to go) up really high to (understand) how small you are."
Baumgartner later said that he had done the record-setting jump to "inspire people" and to "leave something to the world".
In a 2022 documentary, he said that he would leave the world with a smile on his face, knowing that "big dreams always win".
