Death Jump 1912: The Tragic & Ironic Story of Tailor Turned Inventor Franz Reichelt and his Leap from the Eiffel Tower

 Despite being referred to as “The Flying Tailor” by many French newspapers in somewhat mocking reference to his day job, Austro-Hungarian born inventor and naturalized French citizen Franz Reichelt, who also often went by the more Francophied named of Henri Francois Reichelt, was considered a pioneer in the burgeoning field of parachute technology and development during the first decade of the twentieth century.

Over the years Reichelt had experimented with winged parachute-suits that he believed would help a man to glide safely to the ground after being forced to jump out of a flaming dirigible or a stalled airplane that was about to come crashing down to earth.

As of the year 1912 all the tests on the prototypes of  his winged parachute suits had been little short of abject failures.  Some in the media wondered if any of Reichelt’s winged parachute-suits were ever intended to work in the first place, or if the whole thing--leaping off of low rooftops and throwing parachute-suit wearing dummies from third floor balconies--had been nothing more than a publicity stunt, all along designed simply to generate fame and notoriety for the apparently egotistical tailor.  Fame and notoriety, that at least according to the press, the would-be parachute inventor Franz Reichtel has always so desperately craved.

But it seems as if Reichelt himself fervently believed that his winged parachute suits would work.  According to Reichelt, short jumps from second floor balconies and tossing dummies wearing his parachute suits out his apartment window were not “real world” enough to prove the efficacy of his invention.  

Reichelt and his winged parachute-suit

In 1910 Reichelt had thrown a dummy wearing his parachute suit out the window of his third floor apartment, but that experiment had failed.  His wings didn’t catch any air; the parachute apparatus failed to deploy and the dummy fell to the earth like a stone.

Reichelt said of this experimental failure, “The suit had not had time to make contact with the air.  If I had fifty or one-hundred meters instead of twenty-five, the results would have been wonderful.  I will prove it one day.”

He contended that if he leapt from the right platform--one high enough off the ground to allow the wind to be caught beneath the wings of his device--than the parachute would safely deploy on the way down and allow him to glide slowly to earth, thereby making Franz Reichelt the inventor of the world’s first practical parachute device that could potentially save thousands of lives in the future and be a blessing to all of mankind.

And at the very beginning of 1912 Reichelt believed that he had found just such a suitable and high enough platform to test his latest winged parachute-suit invention--the Eiffel Tower.

There was only one problem--Reichelt needed to convince the Parisian authorities to let him use the Eiffel Tower to test his parachute.  Convincing French law enforcement and the city of Paris that it was perfectly alright to let a tailor turned would-be parachute inventor use France’s most famous structure and national symbol to test the worth of his new-fangled funny looking parachute-suit would prove to be no easy task for Reichelt.

Reichelt personally went throughout Paris talking to anyone who would listen about the greatness of his invention.  He launched a relentless media campaign to get the authorities to grant him permission to use the Eiffel Tower to test his new winged “parachute” suit invention.

He told a reporter from Le Petit Journal, the leading newsmagazine in France at the time, “My new invention is like nothing else.  It’s constructed basically half in waterproof fabric and half in sik…thanks to a system of rods and belts that one can control, the parachute deploys during a person’s fall and will save a pilot’s life.”

Eventually, Reichelt’s relentless media campaign and lobbying paid off and the Paris police relented and reluctantly allowed Franz Reichelt to test his winged parachute-suit invention from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Reichelt triumphantly announced to the press on the first day of February 1912 that he had received permission from Parisian authorities to test his invention from the top of the Eiffel Tower.  He requested that his test be filmed using the new technology of motion picture cameras as Reichelt was certain that this medium of moving pictures would once and for all prove the effectiveness of his parachute invention to the world and make him famous.

Seven o’clock in the morning on February 4, 1912.

Newsreel footage is recorded showing Franz Reichelt modeling his winged parachute-suit.  A French newspaper described it at the time as, “Only a little more voluminous than ordinary clothing.”  The dozens of reporters and thousands of spectators that are gathered there before the Eiffel Tower that morning all marvel at how little Reichelt’s parachute-suit restricts the wearer’s movements.

The weather that fateful morning, February 4, 1912 is cold.  The temperature just prior to Reichelt’s leap is recorded at exactly freezing, thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, and a strong icy winter wind was blowing across Paris.

In front of the Eiffel Tower the crowd grew in size and the several police officers who were on hand to maintain order became nervous.  Paris Police Chief Louis Lepine arrived on the scene while Reichelt was modeling his parachute suit for the press to monitor the growing crowd.  Lepine, who as head of the police prefecture would ultimately be held responsible for any accidental deaths that occurred as a result of the parachute test, had only granted his permission for the Reichelt to proceed with his experiment under the understanding that he would be dropping a dummy from the top of the Eiffel Tower and that no actual human beings would ultimately be involved in the test.

But when Lepine questioned him that day Reichelt made it abundantly clear that, in fact, he himself intended to leap from the top of the tower wearing his own parachute suit.

Later on, even Reichelt’s friends who climbed up the tower with him, when interviewed by the press and by Parisian authorities would claim that this news--that Reichelt himself, and not a test dummy, intended to leap from the top of the Eiffel Tower wearing his parachute--was a shocking surprise even to them!

Reichelt Falling to Earth

Before he ascended to the top of the Eiffel Tower around seven in the morning on February 4, 1912, with film cameras rolling and before over 10,000 spectators, just to be clear Franz Reichelt declared, “I want to try the experiment myself and without trickery as I intend to prove the worth of my invention!”

Then, wearing his ungainly winged parachute-suit, Franz Reichelt known as “The Flying Tailor” climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower and prepared to jump.   

The police down below attempted to rope off the crowd at Reichelt’s request to keep them from interfering with his intended landing zone.  At almost the very last second before Reichelt leapt a guard named Gassion stopped the attempt at exactly 8 a.m. by physically restraining Reichelt and claiming he would not allow the experiment to go forward unless permission was definitively granted by the Parisian Police prefecture now that it was know that Reichelt himself, and not a test dummy, intended to leap.

At 8:22 permission was telephoned by Lepine to allow the experiment to proceed unimpeded.

And at that moment, 8:22 a.m., Franz Reichelt standing atop a stool approximately 190 feet above the ground, adjusted his winged parachute apparatus with the help of his friends, climbed atop a guardrail to the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower and jumped.

The newspaper Le Figaro, which had many reporters on the scene, stated that, “Reichelt was calm and smiling right before he leapt.”

His parachute device only half opened after he jumped and the wings of canvas and silk folded around Reichelt as he fell to the earth.  His descent increased in speed; Reichelt fell to the earth in front of the Eiffel Tower and landed on the frozen ground with a thud….

French Police around Reichelt's parachute and body

The film footage speaks for itself and even though it was filmed in 1912 is quite shocking even by today’s standards.  On February 4, 1912 Franz Reichelt failed to invent the world’s first practical parachute, but he did create one of the modern world’s first ever media spectacles and viral videos.

For a time the tragedy of the spectacle that Franz Reichelt either knowingly, or unwittingly created, did in fact make him, in death, one of the most famous men in Europe and perhaps the world at the time.  However, ironically enough, the spectacle of Franz Reichelt and the Paris Death Jump of 1912, would be overshadowed by the much greater human tragedy of the sinking of the Titanic less than two months later in April of 1912.

During the First World World in 1915 Germany would perfect the parachute life-saving device as we know it today.  And by the end of the Great War in 1918 parachutes would be in service with all pilots worldwide and in use on nearly every aircraft in the world.

Thanks in large part to an accident of history, the sacrifice (some would say fool-hardy indeed!) Austro-Hungarian tailor turned parachute inventor Franz Reichelt would be all but forgotten about, other than the film footage that he requested be shot which continues to go viral to this very day!