[HN Gopher] Felix Baumgartner, who jumped from stratosphere, die...
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Felix Baumgartner, who jumped from stratosphere, dies in Italy
Author : signa11
Score : 105 points
Date : 2025-07-19 10:38 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theinternational.at)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theinternational.at)
| lode wrote:
| https://archive.is/2025.07.17-234516/https://www.theinternat...
| justmarc wrote:
| Such a shame. People who have met him have always said he was a
| stand up guy.
|
| Definitely a man who pursued his passions.
|
| RIP.
| cenamus wrote:
| Definitely caused some controversy in recent years aswell, like
| recommending Orban for the peace nobel prize. Literally the man
| that turned Hungary into the poorest and most illiberal EU
| country. But again, Baumgartner prefers dictatorships to
| democracy.
| falseprofit wrote:
| *preferred...
| neuroelectron wrote:
| At least they maintained communism, even if officially it
| stopped being communist, it was still de facto communist and
| that's why it became so poor. Don't think of them as poor but
| as equal outcome.
| biggestlou wrote:
| What on Earth are you talking about?
| miningape wrote:
| Yeah I starved to death, but at least we all died equally
| starved!
|
| Equality of outcome is the cruelest lie the untalented,
| lazy, and comfortable tell each other. They assume it means
| raising the bar to their level instead of drawing it on the
| ground. It's enforced mediocrity, peddled by those who fear
| effort and resent excellence.
| NoOn3 wrote:
| If for you outcome is the same why you would prefer
| capitalism over socialism or communism? only because
| small group of rich people will be in more good? But if
| it doesn't affect you in any way, and maybe it will make
| it worse, there will be no point in it.
| cenamus wrote:
| Equal outcome? Like 99% of power in Hungary is split
| between Orban and his uni dorm buddies. The guy doesn't
| even have any ideology, just loves power, money and
| football. Used to be bearded liberal left wing, turned
| gelled hair far right after the first thing didn't pull any
| voters. Didn't care about immigrants until the far far
| right party got some votes on the issue and then started
| leaning in heavily.
| District5524 wrote:
| Communism in Hungary was introduced and kept up by Soviets
| after the 2nd ww. The very considerable difference between
| Orban and Kadar (the longest serving communist leader) is
| that Kadar paid attention not to make his direct family and
| direct friend the most exorbitantly rich guys in 15 years,
| which probably also made lots of mid-income people poorer
| in Hungary. And despite very strong democratic backsliding
| in many areas, it is still more democratic than during
| Soviet-led times. But that's probably not due to Mr Orban's
| character or self-restraint. Baumgartner's idea is probably
| related to fashionable libertarian ideas of those rich
| people who never had the patience to feel sympathy for
| other people, nor to study history or humanities, but feel
| like they should have a say.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I remember Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize not even a
| year into his first term, with no concrete peace-related
| achievements under his belt. There are also Kissinger, Abiy
| Ahmed and Yasser Arafat on the list of laureates. Overall, it
| might be the weakest of the Prizes, in the "too dependent on
| momental popularity and political pressure" sense.
|
| The scientific Nobels + Literature are usually awarded with a
| decent time gap after the relevant achievement, which helps.
| Maybe the Nobel Peace Prize should only be awarded to
| professionally retired people over 70. That would prevent it
| from being too politicized.
| volleyball wrote:
| (Shimon Peres too in list of questionable peace laureates)
| cenamus wrote:
| The over 70 criteria wouldn't help much nowadays, with
| basically every leader being in his 70s+ (Trump, Biden, Xi,
| Netanyahu, Erdogan, Khomeini, Putin, etc.)
| j3th9n wrote:
| You have your information from the corporate media.
| raffael_de wrote:
| As far as Hungary's development of the GDP per capita is
| concerned your statement is wrong.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eu.
| ..
| gsf_emergency_2 wrote:
| > _Illness_
|
| Unreviewed translation of "Unwohlseins"
|
| Other media hint at seizure/cardiac arrest.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| "feeling unwell" would be the more direct and more correct
| translation
| mithras wrote:
| I wouldn't agree, it's a big step beyond just feeling unwell.
| With this word I would think someone might need medical
| assistance.
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44596845
| sneak wrote:
| AP says it was a paraglider crash.
| lordnacho wrote:
| If you die on your first parachute jump, you're unlucky.
|
| If you live your entire life doing these "small chance each time"
| stunts, maybe we should not be so surprised that your eventual
| demise was this kind of thing.
|
| Was an interesting character, RIP.
| kylecazar wrote:
| Definitely a true statement, but reports are saying he was
| already unconscious as he fell, so some open questions remain
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Not that I doubt the reports, but how could anyone possibly
| make that call?
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| Yes. A pathologist can know if there was a catasthropic
| event like the natural rupture of an artery (e.g. stroke,
| heart attack) In vivo events evolve differently than post
| mortem ones, e.g. strangling a dead body shows differently
| than strangling a person to death.
|
| More recently, he might have been wearing a vital signal
| monitor that kept logs.
|
| Nowadays probably the latter.
| diggan wrote:
| Someone so famous and regularly doing spectacular things
| surely have a bunch of sensors attached to them that
| reports a bunch of metrics about their physiological state.
| ngruhn wrote:
| Well if "unconscious" happens to you in a restaurant you
| don't fall out of the sky.
| 0x000xca0xfe wrote:
| The final result is often similar while driving. Or walking
| down a flight of stairs, at least for oneself.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| No it's not. In both examples you are very likely to
| survive. This is different than the ~0% chance of
| survival Felix had in the air.
| 0x000xca0xfe wrote:
| Tens of thousands die falling on stairs every year. You
| don't have to fall out of the sky to die. Just last year
| a good friend of mine had to bury her sister because she
| fell while exiting her car. You are more likely to
| survive than in small aviation crashes but most people
| (probably Felix included) spend way more time on that
| than flying. As a motorcyclist I'm surely not well of
| either when I suddenly fall unconscious.
|
| There are many activities where you really should not
| pass out while doing them, but they don't make for
| interesting headlines.
| achierius wrote:
| "Many people die from X" is different than "you will most
| likely die if you X".
|
| _Most_ people who pass out in vehicles probably survive.
| Say we ignore the cases where you 're on a side street,
| stuck in traffic, going at slow speeds, etc. (and just
| end up idling in the road with people honking/routing
| around you) -- so just consider the deadliest case, going
| at speed on the highway. While there aren't statistics
| for this particular scenario, we can look at the numbers
| for multi-car collisions in general, as that's near to
| the worst thing that could happen if you did just stop
| managing your car while at speed (gliding into the median
| is much less likely to be fatal): https://crashstats.nhts
| a.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/.... One line in the
| report suggests this should be broadly comparable to what
| we're thinking of: "In about 40 percent of fatal single
| vehicle rollovers and 57 percent of multi- vehicle
| rollovers, investigating officers reported that no crash
| avoidance maneuvers preceded the crash".
|
| Even still: the fatality rate is <10%!
|
| Compare to >80% if you pass out while doing underwater
| cave diving.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| There's a concept I read about before called micromorts, where
| activities are given a danger rating something like the
| expected number of fatalities per million events.
|
| So riding a motorbike 100 miles is 8 micromorts.
|
| Hang-gliding is 9 micromorts.
|
| Base jumping is 430 micromorts.
|
| And summiting Everest is 37,000 micromorts.
|
| Incidentally, of those - I know of two guys who died either on
| Everest or at base camp there over the past 15 years. First guy
| fell on the descent, and the second guy developed health issues
| at altitude (apparently related to an Israeli team immediately
| prior stealing their oxygen bottles).
| d_e_solomon wrote:
| I try to calibrate risk based on the likelihood of dying
| during my commute. I'm glad that there is a more standardized
| scale!
| smus wrote:
| Is there anything you do that ends up being more dangerous?
| Genuinely curious
| criddell wrote:
| I often think about this _while_ riding my bicycle to
| work. The exercise and quiet time surely has a positive
| impact on my health span, but being among cars risking
| collision and breathing in exhaust is a negative. What's
| the net result?
| perilunar wrote:
| Well if you commuted by riding 100 miles per day on a
| motorbike for 40 years your total risk is roughly 77,000
| micromorts (77 millimorts?), or double the risk of
| summiting Everest once!
| perilunar wrote:
| > summiting Everest is 37,000 micromorts
|
| That's _only_ 3.7 % -- I imagined it was higher.
|
| Does the death rate of 'summiting' include those who die
| before they reach the top? or those that abandon an attempt
| and survive?
| bee_rider wrote:
| Everest is such a well-known target, they have helpers and
| there's a whole system, right? I vaguely think I've seen
| photos of a line at the top...
|
| I think it is somewhat commercialized. Actually, I'm
| surprised the death rate is that high. I wonder if it is
| pulled up by people who aren't really ready, because it is
| so popular. FWIW,
|
| https://www.climbing-kilimanjaro.com/mount-kilimanjaro-
| death...
|
| > Approximately 50,000 people ascend Mount Kilimanjaro
| every year. According to Kilimanjaro travel guides and
| recorded statistics, on average 3 to 10 people die each
| year. It is widely believed that the actual number could be
| two to three times higher, although these estimates are not
| substantiated by reliable data.
| hhmc wrote:
| I feel like you want some higher moments on these. At least
| the standard deviation would be useful on top of the
| expectation.
| gdiamos wrote:
| probability is memoryless.
|
| If you have been base jumping for 20 years, you have the same
| risk on your next jump as someone trying it for the first
| time.
| jamwil wrote:
| Yes but you're answering the wrong question. It's not,
| "what is the probability of death on my next jump?". It's
| "what is the accumulated probability of death by jumping
| repeatedly."
|
| The way you answer it is by flipping it upside down (what
| is the probability of surviving a single jump?) and
| multiplying that value by itself n times, where n is the
| number of jumps.
|
| .99999 * .99999 * .99999 * ...
| gdiamos wrote:
| That's only if you are planning to jump 100 more times.
| vladgur wrote:
| A lot more than 2 people die on Everest per year according to
| Wikipedia and I'm sure oxygen bottle theft plays a role but I
| haven't read anything attributing deaths to "Israeli team
| stealing oxygen bottles".
|
| Mind sharing where you got these news from?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_died_climbi.
| ..
| lazyant wrote:
| also with time they get more cocky? While new drivers have a
| higher crash rate in their first year of driving, the fatality
| rate is actually highest in their second year, not their first.
| lionkor wrote:
| I watched him jump live, that was incredibly cool and spooky when
| he started tumbling. I won't forget that
| usr1106 wrote:
| It was not transmitted live, but with a suitable delay. They
| would not have shown it in case.
| meta-level wrote:
| Reminds me of Yuri Gagarin, first man in space who later died in
| a plane crash..
| cwicklein wrote:
| And me of Francis Gary Powers.
| Muromec wrote:
| First man who returned from space alive
| mongol wrote:
| No man, dead or alive, returned from space before him
| neuroelectron wrote:
| >Austrian extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner (56) died on Thursday
| afternoon in a paragliding accident
|
| quite a legacy
| jboggan wrote:
| My 4-year-old daughter asks to watch his Red Bull Stratos jump
| almost every night before bed. She's obsessed with space because
| of him and says "Felix is my favorite astronaut." May he continue
| to inspire.
| laurent_du wrote:
| My son was literally asking me about him yesterday. Wonder how
| many kids think about him every day.
| basisword wrote:
| I was just watching his jump again last week. Was surprised to
| find his record only stood for a couple of years before someone
| went higher in a much less media-covered jump.
| franze wrote:
| 2 years later by a Google guy without much media circus
| sitkack wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Eustace
| dundarious wrote:
| Eustace went higher, but did not freefall -- he had a parachute
| to slow his descent. Baumgartner was in freefall. Different
| categories.
| Rygian wrote:
| The bystanders, and especially the poor woman who was injured in
| the accident, have for sure lived a traumatizing experience.
| rectang wrote:
| Fortunately, from what I read, the woman, a hotel employee who
| was struck by debris from the poolside wooden hut where
| Baumgartner crashed, is expected to make a full recovery. I
| hope she is not afflicted by any lingering health or financial
| problems.
|
| I haven't seen any indication that Baumgartner was paragliding
| in a forbidden area. My understanding is that restrictions on
| paragliding are a patchwork, from licensing and insurance
| requirements to where you are allowed to fly.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > Baumgartner lost control of his motorized paraglider due to a
| sudden illness and crashed into a hotel pool.
|
| He may have died while paragliding rather than from paragliding.
|
| A heart attack or stroke could have been the actual cause of
| death
| Zigurd wrote:
| Red Bull athletes list: https://www.redbull.com/us-en/athletes
|
| The dead ones appear to have been removed from the list, and from
| all other mentions on the website. Quickly, too. Somebody's got
| that in their job description.
|
| I no longer find it entertaining to watch sports where there is
| such a high risk of death, or lifelong impairment, from brain
| injuries, for example. I used to love ski movies. But too many of
| the people in the credits are dead now.
|
| Apart from things like unconscionable contracts, I wouldn't
| restrain people from extreme sports. I'm sure a lot of of them
| die in their beds. I just don't find it entertaining to watch.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I feel that Penn explained this incredibly well in one of my
| favourite magic tricks:
|
| https://youtu.be/Jko5BGhc-Ys?si=Uz6jvQ5voEYAxg8W
|
| We have such a weird relationship with the spectacle of risk.
| As he says, a tightrope act is just as difficult at any height.
| The only need to make it dangerous is because the audience
| wants the circus.
|
| And I think somewhat implicit in the point he's making is that
| he believes that while the audience wants the spectacle, the
| performers have a responsibility not to give it to them.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| > a tightrope act is just as difficult at any height
|
| Well, sort of. But surely part of the feat is overcoming the
| natural fear of heights.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| That's true. But I don't think anyone in the audience is
| being wowed by that detail.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| That's exactly what they're wowed by. The general
| audience cares about the risk-taking, the bravery and
| daring aspect of it, and maybe the visual flashiness.
| It's the psychology that's interesting to a general
| audience because that's what they relate to. Technical
| excellence is always something peers are more interested
| in than spectators, your ordinary viewer isn't invested
| in the technical proficiency of tightrope footwork.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| There's 3 distinct things:
|
| A) The ability of walking a tightrope
|
| B) The ability of overcoming your fears to the extent of
| being able to walk a tightrope at a dangerous height
|
| C) The risk of falling
|
| I would argue that the audience cares about A and C. The
| audience doesn't care so much for B.
| majormajor wrote:
| I think the audience largely just cares about C.
|
| I would not be surprised if most lay people don't know
| why or how it's even that hard, or what goes into
| training. "Oh, it's just someone who has good balance" vs
| an awareness of the technical details of physical
| fitness.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Having watched a few of Cirque du Soleil's shows, I can
| confirm that A is much more impressive and exciting than
| C.
|
| Sure, there's risk, but seeing how effortless they make
| it look is amazing. The skill to do it fearlessly is far
| more impressive than the fact that something bad didn't
| happen. Audience members expect that it won't happen.
| There's a visceral reaction, of course, but that's it.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Completely agreed. I think the first time you go with
| some friends to an olympic diving board, it's the exact
| same thing. When you look at it from the ground it's
| "only" 10m, it doesn't feel so scary. But when you get up
| there and look down, zomg is 10m friggin high! Oh and the
| climb up there... It's high enough that by the time you
| reach the platform you've completely dried off.
|
| It's completely safe and trivial to do, but awesome
| nonetheless, and a show for your friends, just because
| it's really scary the first time you do it!
| mtalantikite wrote:
| This reminded me of an old Dave Chappelle joke about the
| Siegfried & Roy tiger show (around 1:10 min mark):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kth0UOU5a_M
| watwut wrote:
| > As he says, a tightrope act is just as difficult at any
| height. The only need to make it dangerous is because the
| audience wants the circus.
|
| Tho, only a few of the people who engage in these dangerous
| sports are famous or earn money on that. As in, if you look
| at those sports, there are always people who seek the danger
| and possible self destruction. They do it, because they want
| to do them. Not because of the audience.
| gdbsjjdn wrote:
| There's a level of economic coercion involved though as well -
| "going pro" is only possible by pushing for riskier and riskier
| stunts. If you want to get paid to ski, skateboard, etc you
| need to be doing increasingly extreme things to risk your own
| health and safety. The companies do lots of risk mitigation
| once you're filming a TV spot, but to get to that level you
| already had to be putting your body on the line for years.
| perilunar wrote:
| The ethical thing is to refuse to be complicit by refusing to
| watch.
| franze wrote:
| Here in Austria he was a very controversial person cause of his
| stance on democracy, right wing views and conflicts with Austrian
| journalists.
| antonvs wrote:
| He should have come to live in the US, he would have been
| welcome in the current administration.
| wolfi1 wrote:
| He sure would have been welcome as a tax avoider
| jjcob wrote:
| Austrian newspaper _Der Standard_ [1] is reporting that he was
| using a camera attached with a string, and authorities are
| considering the possiblity that it got caught in the propellor,
| leading to a collapse of the parachute.
|
| Allegedly he tried to open the emergency chute, but was already
| too low.
|
| [1]: https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000280134/justiz-in-
| ita...
| stillsut wrote:
| Curious parallel to Gary Powers: the man who fell from the
| stratosphere in a shot down U2 and later in life died crash
| landing into a populated area:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Gary_Powers#Death
| MarkMarine wrote:
| I'm the a moon's distance away from a being a pro athlete or
| pushing any adventure sports field I participate in, but I do
| things for fun that some people think are insanely dangerous.
| I've toned it back now that I have kids (which changed my
| thinking) but for a long time I would have been quite happy with
| that exit from life. Doing something I loved, never put through
| indignity of advanced age, dying quickly and without suffering.
|
| God speed Felix
| tetris11 wrote:
| I used to walk across pitched roofs 3-floors up as a teen, and
| squeeze between cars and busses on my bike in narrow london
| roads (back before bike lanes were a thing) to the point that I
| would routinely get to my job with bloodied knuckles.
|
| At the time I was clearly just vibing off the adrenaline, but
| looking back on it all as mature adult... I get heart
| palpatations.
|
| There are many parallel worlds where I am not alive, and I
| think of those other selves often.
| usrusr wrote:
| My risk habits have a rather low chance of dying per injury
| event, but life changing injury isn't all that rare. I do
| occasionally see myself envying those with a risk profile
| that's more on the binary end of the spectrum: where it's
| either a clean end or everything is fine.
| fuzzythinker wrote:
| Slightly misleading title. He's famous for first to jump from the
| stratosphere, breaking the sound barrier. That wasn't the cause
| of his death. More on him
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Baumgartner .
|
| Maybe a more interesting and impressive fact from the wiki is
| learning about Alan Eustace, who was a senior VP of engineering
| at Google. Just before retiring, on October 24, 2014 *at age 57*,
| he made a free-fall jump from the stratosphere, breaking Felix
| Baumgartner's world record. He won the Laureus World Action
| Sportsperson of the Year in 2015.
| fuzzythinker wrote:
| Found HN post (236 comments) on Alan Eustace breaking the
| record: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8504931
| Graziano_M wrote:
| At the Air & Space Museum in DC there's a little exhibit for
| each of them right across from each other.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44596845
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