Retired US Air Force pilot Colonel Joseph Kittinger died Friday in Florida.
Kittinger, 94, held the record for the highest parachute jump for more than 50 years.
The cause of his death, which was announced by former US Representative John Mica and other friends, was lung cancer.
Formerly an Air Force captain and pilot, Kittinger gained international fame when he completed three jumps over the course of 10 months from a gondola that was hoisted into the stratosphere by large helium balloons.
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Project Excelsior was intended to help design ejection systems for military pilots flying high-altitude missions.
During his first jump in November 1959, Kittinger was nearly killed when his equipment malfunctioned after jumping from 14.5 miles above the surface.
FILE – Retired Air Force Col. Joseph W. Kittinger Jr. smiles during his induction into the Aviation Hall of Fame, Saturday, July 19, 1997, in Dayton, Ohio. Kittinger, the US Air Force pilot who held the record for the highest parachute jump for more than 50 years, died Friday, December 9, 2022 in Florida at age 94.
(AP Photo/Michael Heinz, File)
He lost consciousness when he went into a spin that was 22 times the force of gravity, but was saved when his automatic parachute opened.
About a month later, he made his second jump without issue from just over 14 miles.
Kittinger’s record came on August 16, 1960, in the New Mexico desert. This time, however, his pressure suit malfunctioned as he rose, causing his right hand to swell to twice his normal size before the jump from 19 miles above the surface.
On August 16, 1960, Colonel Kittinger stepped out of a balloon-supported gondola at an altitude of 102,800 feet. Freefalling for 4.5 minutes at speeds of up to 614 miles per hour and temperatures as low as -94 degrees Fahrenheit, he opened his parachute at 18,000 feet.
(NASA/Corbis via Getty Images)
He exceeded a speed of 600 miles per hour before the gradually thickening air slowed his fall to approximately 150 mph as his parachute deployed at 18,000 feet.
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“There’s no way you can visualize speed,” the Tampa native told Florida Trend magazine in 2011. “There’s nothing you can see to tell how fast you’re going. You don’t have depth perception. If you’re in a car driving down the road and you close your eyes you have no idea what your speed is it’s the same if you’re free falling from space there’s no sign you know you’re going very fast but you don’t feel you don’t have a 614 mph wind blowing over you. I could only hear myself breathing in the helmet.”
Kittinger remains in the Air Force after his jumps and served three tours of duty during the Vietnam War.
FILE – In this photo provided by the US Air Force, Capt. Joseph Kittinger Jr., aerospace laboratory test manager, sits in the open balloon gondola after his first test parachute jump for Project Excelsior at the Air Force Missile Development Center, New Mexico, November Jan. 16, 1959. The gondola carried him to an altitude of 76,400 feet for his record-breaking freefall jump of more than 12 miles. On the left is David Willard, who designed and developed special equipment for the gondola.
(Photo/AP File)
In May 1972, he was shot down but expelled and later captured, spent 11 months in a Hanoi POW camp and suffered torture.
Kittinger retired from the Air Force in 1978 and became a local icon in the Orlando area.
His record was broken in 2012 by the Austrian Felix Baumgartner, jumping from 24 miles over the New Mexico desert and reaching a speed of 844 miles per hour. Kittinger was a consultant.
He is survived by his wife, Sherri.
Joseph Kittinger Jr. (R), balloon pilot who broke the record for flying at 102,800 feet, speaks to the media as Paule Tibbets listens during a news conference July 19, 2003, in Dayton, Ohio.
(Mike Simons/Getty Images)
“Joe will be greatly missed, but his achievements and legacy will be long admired and remembered by explorers around the world,” Explorers Club President Richard Garriott of Cayeux wrote in a statement.
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Kittinger, a member of the club, was a distinguished recipient of the 2001 Explorers Club Medal.
Garriott de Cayeux noted that, among his many accolades, he was the first person to cross the Atlantic solo in a gas-powered balloon, as well as the first person to fully witness the curvature of the Earth.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
