← Back to the front page

Dramatic Deaths These People Did Not See Coming

Khalid Elhassan January 27, 2024 19 min

Eleazar Avaran's heroic exploit at the Battle of Beth Zechariah, 162 BC. Wikimedia

An Inventor Determined to Prove His Invention

Funny - Franz Reichelt and his parachute suit — Franz Reichelt and his parachute suit. Gorilla Cool

Franz Reichelt (1879 – 1912), a French tailor with a passion for flight, gained notoriety for his tragicomic demise while attempting to invent a parachute suit. Inspired by the Aero Club de France’s prize for a successful parachute design, Reichelt crafted a 20-pound suit with a silken hood, aiming to enable pilots to safely land in emergencies. Despite multiple failed tests using dummies, Reichelt persisted and obtained permission to conduct a live trial from the Eiffel Tower.

On February 4th, 1912, amidst a crowd of spectators and journalists, Reichelt ascended the Eiffel Tower, intending to jump himself in his parachute suit. Ignoring pleas from friends and onlookers, he leaped from the tower’s first deck at 8:22 AM. However, the suit proved ineffective, and Reichelt tragically plummeted 200 feet to the ground below, leaving a comically small crater upon impact. His daring attempt, though misguided, highlighted the risks of innovation without adequate testing, contrasting sharply with a successful parachute jump conducted just days earlier. Reichelt’s unwittingly dramatic death remains a cautionary tale in the annals of aviation history.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.