Extreme sports pioneer Felix Baumgartner, famed for a record-breaking 2012 skydive from the edge of space, died on Thursday in a paragliding accident in central Italy, local police said. He was 56.

Baumgartner lost control of his motorised paraglider while flying over Porto Sant'Elpidio in Italy's central Marche region and fell to the ground near the swimming pool of a hotel. The reasons for the accident remain unclear.

Porto Sant'Elpidio's mayor, Massimiliano Ciarpella, said reports suggested he may have suffered a sudden medical issue mid-air and offered the town's condolences for the death of "a symbol of courage and passion for extreme flights."

First skydiver to break the sound barrier

Baumgartner made headlines around the world in October 2012 when, wearing a specially made suit, he jumped from a balloon 38 kilometres above Earth, becoming the first skydiver to break the sound barrier, typically measured at more than 1100 kilometres per hour.

He made the historic jump over Roswell, New Mexico, reaching a peak speed of over 1,343 kilometres per hour, on the 65th anniversary of legendary American pilot Chuck Yeager's flight shattering the sound barrier on October 14, 1947.

He started parachuting as a teenager before taking up the extreme sport of BASE jumping.

His long career of daredevil jumps included skydiving across the English Channel and parachuting off the Petronas Towers in Malaysia.