Beachgoers were aware of a paraglider’s malfunction when they heard a loud boom ring as it sprang into flames near the Adriatic Sea, killing its only passenger, extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner.
A 30-year-old mother and her two young children, who were enthralled by the constant paragliding above the beach town of Porto Sant’Elipido in the Marche region, watched the deadly descent unfold Thursday afternoon from a nearby house.
“Everything was normal until it started to spin like a top,” Mirella Ivanov said on Friday. We audibly heard a roar as it fell. I actually turned around because I believed it had sunk into the rocks. Then I ran into two lifeguards, heading toward “the crash site.”
She hustled her two children away when she saw people attempting to save the owner.
Baumgartner, 56, was credited with being the first skydiver to fall more quickly than the speed of sound, according to the city’s mayor. Investigating the paragliding accident was ongoing. Calls to the police for comment were not returned.
According to Mayor Massimiliano Ciarpella, “It is a destiny that is very difficult to comprehend for a man who has broken all kinds of records, who has been an icon of flight, and who travelled through space.”
Baumgartner claimed that he had taken a vacation and that Baumgartner’s family believed he may have fallen ill during the fatal flight.
In recent days, Baumgartner has been taking off from a nearby airfield surrounded by cornfields while using a motorized paraglider, or paramotoring, above seaside towns.
A statement from the beachside resort Clube de Sole Le Mimose claimed that a worker who was “middle injured” in the accident was in good condition. The pool has been reopened, and there are no injuries.
Baumgartner, known as “Fearless Felix,” broke the silence on sound with only his body in 2012. He jumped from a capsule he had inflated to more than 24 miles (39 kilometers) by a huge helium balloon over New Mexico while wearing a pressurized suit.
During a nine-minute descent, the Austrian, who was a member of the Red Bull Stratos team, topped out at 843.6 mph (1, 357.6 km/h), which is the equivalent of 1.25 times the speed of sound. His crew later reported that at one point, while still supersonic, he spun for 13 seconds before going into a potentially dangerous flat spin.
Millions of people watched Baumgartner’s livestream on YouTube in 2012 as he activated his parachute as he approached the ground and raised his arms in triumphant height as he rose from the capsule high above Earth.
Before Google’s executive Alan Eustace set new records for the highest free-fall jump and longest free-fall distance, Baumgartner’s altitude record lasted for two years.
Former Austrian military parachutist Baumgartner performed thousands of jumps from famous landmarks, including the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil, including airplanes, bridges, skyscrapers, and other landmarks.
After being dropped from a plane in 2003, he took a carbon-fiber wing across the English Channel.
He has recently performed as a helicopter stunt pilot for The Flying Bulls, an aviation team owned and run by Red Bull, in various European venues.
In a post on Friday, Red Bull paid tribute to Baumgartner, calling him “precise, demanding, and critical.” Above all, you have to respect yourself.
The statement highlighted Baumgartner’s bravery and research in facing “the greatest challenges.”
Source: Aljazeera
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