Joseph Kittinger Cause of Death

Air Force veteran Colonel Joseph Kittinger, whose parachute jump from nearly 20 miles (32 kilometers) above the Earth in 1960 held the world record for more than 50 years, died Friday December 9, 2022, in Florida. He was 94.

Joseph Kittinger died from lung cancer. According to Former U.S. Rep. John Mica and other friends who announced his death.

Joseph Kittinger’s initial operational assignment was in fighter aircraft, and from 1956 to 1960, he participated in the Project Manhigh and Project Excelsior high-altitude balloon flight projects, becoming the first man to fully witness the curvature of the Earth.

Kittinger shot down a North Vietnamese MiG-21 jet fighter as a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War.

Later, he was shot down himself, and he spent 11 months as a prisoner of war in a North Vietnamese prison before being repatriated in 1973. He was also the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in a gas balloon in 1984.

At the age of 84, Kittinger took part in the Red Bull Stratos project as a capsule communicator in 2012, directing Felix Baumgartner on his 24-mile (39-kilometer) freefall from Earth’s stratosphere, breaking Kittinger’s own 53-year-old record.