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Extreme skydiver Baumgartner dies in paragliding accident
- toomuchtodo 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Baumgartner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Baumgartner https://felixbaumgartner.com/ https://felixbaumgartner.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_Stratos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_Stratos https://www.redbull.com/int-en/projects/red-bull-stratos https://www.redbull.com/int-en/projects/red-bull-stratos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYw4meRWGd4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYw4meRWGd4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raiFrxbHxV0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raiFrxbHxV0
- toomuchtodo 1y agohttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/18/world/europe/felix-baumgartner-dead.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/18/world/europe/felix-baumga... https://archive.today/e0OGy https://archive.today/e0OGy
- NanoWar 1y agoAccording to the meme: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Felix_Baumgartner&diff=prev&oldid=1301012151 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Felix_Baumgartn...
- RamblingCTO 1y ago> He lost control of the craft and crashed into a swimming pool at a coastal resort, striking a young woman who was injured on impact. not cool
- toomuchtodo 1y agoSome grace is needed, as a medical event was the root cause. edit: unexpected unconsciousness is not a medical event?
- RamblingCTO 1y agoall we know is that we became unconscious, right?
- shadowgovt 1y agoAs generally people don't just nod off flying a paraglider, a medical event is extremely likely even if it has not been officially determined.
- aaroninsf 1y agoThey might however "nod off" in consequence of losing control during risk-taking activities and being subjected to high Gs. Whether "medical event" was prior to or resulted from risk-taking adventure, and hence culpability, will await forensics I imagine. If those are possible. That determination aside however, risk-taking that puts others at risk (e.g., flying over other people) is morally and in many jurisdictions legally prohibited for obvious reasons.
- hotpocket777 1y agoDo you mean activities like driving a car?
- shadowgovt 1y agoI don't think that's true. I see powered paragliders out at the beach all the time, and to my knowledge that was perfectly legal as long as you are licensed properly. I suspect that the story here is that until things went wrong nobody expected that this was a risk-taking activity in the first place (any more so than paragliding in general is). Do we have reason to believe he was doing it unsafely before disaster struck and he lost control?
- jppj 1y agoNot sure the details but it seems the article was edited > then lost control of his paraglider, crashing into a hotel pool and lightly injuring a young female employee. Still not great, but it seems like a rush of water knocking over someone, not quite striking which sounds like it would be life threatening.
- throwawayoldie 1y ago[flagged]
- happytoexplain 1y agoI'm not familiar with the qualitative nature of the German/Austrian right wing right now (e.g. you can be an anti-immigration right winger without being Trumpian), but none of that sounds worthy of a dismissive attitude at face value. Obviously I would not be surprised if he was a typical asshole about things like this. I just don't like the usage of those political opinions in particular as "this is a bad person" evidence.
- throwawayoldie 1y ago> he recommended Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for the Nobel Peace Prize
- mschuster91 1y agoThat's because the stuff is wrapped in layers. Read the original quotes (I've translated in [1]), or run the German Wikipedia article through a translation engine [2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44597171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44597171 [2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Baumgartner#Umstrittene_%C3%84u%C3%9Ferungen_und_politische_Statements https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Baumgartner#Umstrittene_...
- happytoexplain 1y agoYeah, he's definitely an asshole. But mostly in tone - most of the concrete stuff in this summary section consists of theoretically defensible conservative positions. To be clear: I'm not defending him holistically. I don't know him. I just don't like the idea of anti-immigration opinion as a whole, and the idea that democracy is failing rapidly, being elevated into the echelon of indefensible positions. Of course "dictatorship", moderate or otherwise, is a scary word to hear from a German/Austrian. But simply the idea that there could be something in-between democracy and dictatorship? That doesn't sound insane. Just daunting. Also, he doesn't even seem married to the idea. The summary mentions his admiration of direct democracy.
- theothertimcook 1y agoI only learned recently that Felix nearly had to pull out of the jump due to claustrophobia from the suit. After CBT he was able to tolerate the suit and complete the jump. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/skydiver-felix-baumgartner-overcame-claustrophobia-break-world-records/story?id=17481428 https://abcnews.go.com/Health/skydiver-felix-baumgartner-ove...
- rich_sasha 1y agoWearing a spacesuit, you can't scratch your nose. You maybe don't think it's a big thing but try sitting one minute without touching your face.
- olddustytrail 1y agoI have no idea why you think this is a thing, but just in case I subconsciously tend to do this, I set a timer for 2 minutes without touching my face. It was effortless. Edit: wait, I've been in an MRI machine for over an hour where I can't move my arms from my side. How can you think one minute is anything?
- rich_sasha 1y agoYou clearly have superhuman endurance and I bow to you.
- DamnInteresting 1y agoThis video says that the helmet mic serves as a decent face scratcher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VCuaZCRn1U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VCuaZCRn1U I've also read that many astronauts put strips of adhesive Velcro in their helmet for this purpose: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/42012/nose-scratching-velcro-in-spacesuits-hook-side-or-loop-side https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/42012/nose-scratch...
- ASalazarMX 1y agoAt the start of the jump he started spinning out of control, but he regained it later. I always thought he just got the hang of it, but if he was claustrophobic, maybe he panicked a bit before composing himself.
- postsantum 1y ago[flagged]
- EA-3167 1y agoHe was on record advocating for dictatorship. I'm not saying that in a typically hyperbolic, social media sense either, he used the terminology himself. So yes, when a state news agency is announcing the death of someone who's major contributions have been some very impressive sporting achievements... and having political views that are fairly alarming coming from anyone, never mind an Austrian, it might come up. It wasn't a one-off either, he later pointed out Victor Orban as a model for how to handle government, immigration, etc. If you want a eulogy I'd suggest seeking out the eulogy his family probably published, not a death announcement from DW.
- perching_aix 1y agoReflects on the image of a public person, whose politics they themselves apparently made a significant enough part of.
- jjcob 1y agoIt's relevant because that's what most people in Austria remember him for. First he got famous for the Sky Dive from space Then he made headlines for his facebook posts, sharing questionable opinions with the media, and supporting right wing politician like Strache (who is currently on trial for embezzling party money to fund his lavish lifestyle). It's a part of his public persona, not mentioning it would be weird. It's not like he shared his questionable views in private.
- more_corn 1y agoI always appreciate when a daredevil dies doing what he loves. Seriously, these people don’t want to die in bed. They want to live, live, live and then blink out. I’ve seen too many people withering away in hospital beds.
- southernplaces7 1y agoFrom Wikipedia: "On 13 July 2016, Facebook deleted his fan page of 1.5 million fans. Baumgartner subsequently claimed that he must have become "too uncomfortable" for "political elites".[48]" Because of his pro-right viewpoints. For one thing, it's slightly amusing considering Zuckerberg's own politically convenient pirouettes on politics and management. Secondly, it reminds me why the argument was very much on the mark that social media in those days absolutely did work hard to shut don all kinds of opinions that didn't fit with dominant groupthink. It's idiotic that a famous figure should be subject to such a deletion as soon as they deviate from a specific progressive discourse, even if one disagrees with its opposite in so many ways.
- shadowgovt 1y agoDo we have a timeline of the deletion? I don't think I'm a priori convinced that he was deleted "as soon as [he deviated] from a specific progressive discourse." If anything, prior to Jan 6, 2021 (when Zuckerberg became aware that there was such a thing as aiding and abetting treason if enough political figures decided Facebook had been complicit in organizing an attempted coup), the site was permissive in the extreme; their goal was to maximize userbase to maximize revenue, and they were very loathe to ban anyone.
- shabbychef 1y ago[flagged]
- ajay-b 1y agoOh my God, that is horrible. He was so inspiring.
- hadriendavid 1y agoHe was a far right extremist…
- k__ 1y agoNot a contradiction. For some people this is inspiring.
- sandspar 1y agoI guess people generally try to maximize reward per lifetime. Some people try to increase their lifetime, albeit with smaller reward per unit time (eating their spinach). A few rare people try to maximize reward per unit time, even at the cost of a longer life. Felix lived to 56, skydiving all the way. Although he died younger than the average Austrian, he probably experienced greater sum reward. I suppose the gamble is that with his lifestyle, he could have died in his teens - in which case the sum of his reward would be lower than an "eat your spinach" 80 year old. I wonder if you could cross compare: perhaps the sum reward of Felix's 56 fun years is about the same as a Greenland shark's 400 boring years.