An Inventor Jumped From the Eiffel Tower to Test His Experimental Parachute. Here's What Happened Next.

Fortune favors the brave, but sometimes the required courage costs lives. Franz Reichelt wanted to create history by designing a functional parachute for pilots, ATI reported. Riechelt put everything in line for his pursuit, including his own life. 

Reichelt was an Austrian-born tailor working in 20th-century France, ATI reported. During, this time the country was facing the issue of multiple air crashes, with many pilots losing their lives because no viable parachutes had been created for them. 

By the 20th century, the most commonly used parachutes could not handle people falling from low altitudes, ATI reported. Though working as a tailor, parachutes had become a passion for Riechelt. He constantly talked about them, especially his parachute suits with his friends and close ones. 

"My new invention is like nothing else," Reichelt shared, ATI reported. "It’s constructed, basically, half in waterproof fabric and half in silk…thanks to a system of rods and belts that one can control, the ‘parachute’ deploys during a fall and will save [a pilot’s] life."

Reichelt believed that his parachute suit had the qualities that would make it durable for pilots and other passengers to use in times of danger, ATI reported. His early experiments in 1901, were a resounding success. Problems crept up when he had to make the parachute wearable for pilots.

The alterations Reichelt introduced in the parachute to make it more wearable for pilots, caused the balance of the entire structure to go haywire, ATI reported. The dummies on which he tested the parachute fell one after the other, in each attempt. The tailor tried it himself and broke his leg from the fall.

Riechelt, even after failures, had trust in his invention, ATI reported. "The suit has not had time to make contact with the air," Reichelt reflected. "If I had fifty or one hundred meters instead of twenty-five, the results would be wonderful. I will prove it, one day."

Riechelt believed that his invention was not getting enough height to take on a flight, ATI reported. His motivation to prove the worth of his invention elevated sharply when the Aéro-Club de France announced prize money of 10,000 francs to anyone who could create a safety parachute for aviators that did not exceed 25 kilograms (55.116 pounds) in weight.

Riechelt decided to use the Eiffel Tower as his test site, thinking that it would give the height his invention needed to take flight, ATI reported. After a year, he got permission from the Parisian police to go ahead with the test. 

On the morning of February 4, 1912, Riechelt showed up at the tower with no dummies, ATI reported. He had decided that for this test, he would be using his own body as the subject. The tailor's friend and the tower's security guard tried to dissuade him from this plan, but they were unsuccessful.

Friends warned Riechelt that it was too cold and windy for the test, ATI reported. 

Reichelt dismissed their concerns, ATI reported. "You are going to see how… my parachute will give your arguments the most decisive of denials," he said.

Many journalists had also arrived on the site to witness the test, ATI reported. A healthy crowd had gathered around the tower. There was both optimism and dread, in the people about this call. 

At 8.22 am, Riechelt stood at the edge of the platform to take flight, ATI reported. For forty seconds, he remained static in his position. Thereafter, he propelled himself from the tower, and within seconds, the parachute promptly folded around him, and he plummeted down to the frozen grass.

Riechelt died on the spot with his right arm and leg broken, as well as skull and back crushed, ATI reported.

After Riechelt's death it became known that the objective, the tailor was trying to achieve had already been completed by a Russian actor named Gleb Kotelnikov, Smithsonian Magazine reported. He had invented the first backpack parachute in 1911. This kind of parachute was capable enough to help humans survive a fall of 10,000 feet.