Wife shares final footage of Red Bull space jump icon Felix Baumgartner

News.com.au

5 days ago

The grieving partner of famed skydiver Felix Baumgartner shared tragic footage of the extreme athlete's final flight — just moments before he crashed and died.
The 56-year-old — who was renowned as the first skydiver to fall faster than the speed of sound — died in a paragliding accident in the Italian town of Porto Sant'Elpidio.
The Austrian daredevil reportedly fell ill and lost consciousness while flying a motorised paraglider.
Video shared by Baumgartner's longtime partner shows him preparing his parachute and starting the propeller of his paraglider before taking off into the cloudless summer sky.
'I was filming him taking off not knowing that this will be his last flight of his extraordinary life,' Miha Schwartzenberg, 55, who was with Baumgartner since 2014, wrote in a social media post accompanying the video which you can watch above.
'For over 12y I was there for every take off and landing, from skydiving, paragliding, helicopter flights, paramotor to aerobatic shows,' she wrote, adding that he was 'going home now, up there, where he was the happiest ever.'
In the short clip, the adrenaline junkie is seen wearing shorts and a crash helmet as he fires up his propeller pack and runs across the grass to get airborne.
As his wing fills with air and lifts him up from the ground, he tucks in his legs.
Baumgartner achieved global fame in 2012 when he successfully skydived 24 miles from the edge of space to the ground, becoming the first human to break the sound barrier with only his body.
Schwartzenberg also recalled how when she hadn't been able to attend her partner's skydives, the couple had a 'WLC code,' or 'the Wifey Landing call,' when he got to the ground.
'Never missed one. Except … this one,' she added.
The exact circumstances behind Baumgartner's death are still under investigation.
The Red Bull-sponsored athlete is believed to have fallen ill midair which caused him to lose control and crash to the ground, into the side of a swimming pool, killing him instantly.
A hotel employee on the ground was also injured in the fall when the paraglider struck them.
Schwartzenberg, a Romanian-born TV presenter, also praised Baumgartner's fans who have reached out to her since her partner's tragic death.
'Thank you all for your support and for keeping his unique legacy high up. This man was truly special, in so many ways, and I'll make sure I'll keep telling his story,' she wrote.
'But now…., I have to deal with the shock, the pain, the sunrises where I get to make just one coffee, not two,' she said.