An inquiry found that extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner’s death in a paragliding crash was caused by human error.
Baumgartner, the first skydiver to fall faster than the speed of sound, died July 17 when he lost consciousness and crashed his motorized paraglider into a hotel swimming pool on Italy’s Adriatic coast.
Witnesses reported seeing Baumgartner fly normally before starting to spin ahead of the crash.
Prosecutor Raffaele Iannella said there were not mechanical issues with the Austrian’s aircraft.
“He fell into a spiral, and he could not get out. He was unable to do the maneuver that he should have done to exit” from the fall, Iannella told The Associated Press.
Iannella will now ask a judge to approve a closing of the case.
In 2012, Baumgartner became the first person to break the sound barrier using only their body when he fell from a giant helium balloon from an altitude of about 127,000 feet above New Mexico while wearing a pressurized suit.
During his 9-minute descent, he reached a top speed of 843.6 mph — 1.25 times the speed of sound.
He was also a world-class BASE jumper and skydiver, completing leaps from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the then-tallest building in the world, and the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. He also crossed the English Channel on a specially designed carbon wing.
With News Wire Services
