The Inventor Killed by His Own Invention
On February 4, 1912, Franz Reichelt climbed to the first platform of the Eiffel Tower and jumped. He was wearing a combination overcoat-parachute of his own design, and he had told Parisian police he intended to test it using a dummy. He used himself instead.
Reichelt was an Austrian-born tailor working in Paris who had become obsessed with designing a wearable parachute for aviators. Early aviation was extraordinarily dangerous—pilots flew without parachutes, and crashes were frequently fatal. Reichelt believed he could create a garment that would function as both a coat and a parachute, deployable by the wearer in an emergency.
He had been working on prototypes since at least 1910. His initial tests, using dummies dropped from the fifth floor of his apartment building, produced mixed results. Some versions slowed the fall noticeably. Others didn't open at all. Reichelt adjusted the design repeatedly, increasing the surface area of the canopy to about 340 square feet—roughly the size of a large room—and adjusting the frame structure. He remained convinced that the design was sound but that his test height was insufficient. He needed altitude for the canopy to fully deploy.
He requested permission to test from the Eiffel Tower. The Parisian police prefecture granted it, apparently under the impression he would drop a dummy. On the morning of the test, Reichelt arrived at the tower wearing the device, which weighed about 20 pounds and made him look like a man wrapped in a large, stiff blanket. Newsreel cameras were present.
Witnesses reported that Reichelt hesitated on the platform for about forty seconds, looking over the railing at the frozen ground 187 feet below. Then he climbed onto a stool, stepped over the railing, and jumped. The parachute did not open. He fell for approximately five seconds and struck the frozen ground at the base of the tower. He was killed on impact. The fall left a measurable impact crater in the soil.
The newsreel footage survives. It shows Reichelt's hesitation, his leap, and the parachute folding uselessly around him as he dropped. It remains one of the earliest filmed deaths in history.