Nicholas Piantanida

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Nicholas "Nick" Piantanida (born August 15, 1932 , † August 29, 1966 in Worthington (Minnesota) ) was an American parachutist who tried in 1965 and 1966 with great media interest, the world record set on August 16, 1960 by Joseph Kittinger for a parachute jump out of the stratosphere (31,332 meters), and was killed in the process.

During the first of three balloon trips on October 22, 1965, malfunctioning of the balloon forced him to get out of the gondola at a height of almost 5000 meters and to disappoint observers and the press with a failed attempt instead of a stratospheric jump.

A few months later, material and sponsors were found for another attempt. On February 2, 1966, he reached a new record height of 37,643 meters in his balloon, but was unable to detach the space suit he needed for the jump from the oxygen supply hose of the gondola. To save the situation, the balloon was abandoned and detached from the gondola, in which Piantanida finally returned to earth after a freefall at about 600 kilometers per hour by a parachute. Because of the separation of the balloon, the trip was not officially recognized as an altitude record by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale .

A third attempt was made on May 1, 1966, and it was initially promising. After well over 17,000 meters had already been reached, after an apparent incident, which has not yet been fully clarified, the radio connection was broken, so that the ground crew abandoned the main balloon again, just like three months earlier, and the gondola landed on the parachute after 26 minutes. Piantanida was found groaning but unconscious and taken to a nearby clinic with no special altitude decompression facility. It was found that the visor of the helmet had opened for an unknown reason and he lost consciousness due to the lack of oxygen and fell into a coma due to the insufficient supply of the brain . He never woke up from the coma and passed away four months later.

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Brett McKay, Kate McKay: Skydiving from Space Part II: Nick Piantanida's "Magnificent Failure". In: A man's life. October 7, 2010, accessed October 15, 2012 .
  2. ↑ Stefanie Gaffron: 38 kilometers of free fall. In: The world . August 19, 2001, accessed October 15, 2012 .
  3. ^ David J. Shayler, Disasters and Accidents in Manned Spaceflight. , Springer, Berlin 2000, page 38.
personal data
SURNAME Piantanida, Nicholas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Piantanida, Nick
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American parachutist
DATE OF BIRTH August 15, 1932
DATE OF DEATH August 29, 1966
Place of death Worthington, Minnesota