Franz Reichelt was born on 16 October 1878 in Wegstädtl, Kingdom of Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (today Štětí, Czech Republic), and moved to Paris, France, in 1898.

The dawn of the aviation age brought inevitable accidents coupled with a growing interest in safety measures, most notably in the development of an effective parachute.

His early tests were successful: dummies equipped with foldable silk "wings" touched down lightly when dropped from five floors,[4] but converting the prototypes into a wearable "suit" proved difficult.

L'Ouest-Éclair reported in 1911 that Reichelt had personally jumped from a height of 8 to 10 metres (26 to 33 ft) at Joinville; the attempt failed but a pile of straw helped him escape injury.

[11] Reichelt attributed the previous failures of his designs at least in part to the short drop distances over which he had conducted his tests, so he was keen to receive permission to experiment from the tower.

[6] Reichelt announced to the press in early February 1912 that he had finally received permission and would shortly conduct an experiment from the Eiffel Tower to prove the value of his invention.

He was concerned that the parachute needed longer to fully open than the few seconds the drop from the first platform would allow, and he also presented other technical objections to which Reichelt could not provide a satisfactory response.

(Vous allez voir comment mes soixante-douze kilos et mon parachute vont donner à vos arguments le plus décisif des démentis.

[5] At 8:22 a.m., observed by a crowd of about thirty journalists and curious onlookers, Reichelt readied himself – facing towards the Seine – on a stool placed on a restaurant table next to the interior guardrail of the tower's first deck, a little more than 57 metres (187 ft) above the ground.

After adjusting his apparatus with the assistance of his friends and checking the wind direction by throwing a piece of paper taken from a small book,[13] he placed one foot on the guardrail, hesitated for about forty seconds, then leapt outwards.

Le Petit Parisien reported that Reichelt's right leg and arm were crushed, his skull and spine broken, and that he was bleeding from his mouth, nose and ears.

Film of the attempt, including footage of Reichelt's body being removed and the onlookers measuring the depth of the crater left by his impact (15 centimetres; 5.9 in[4]), was distributed by news organizations.

A journalist in Le Gaulois suggested that only half the term "mad genius" applied to Reichelt – although the same report included an interview with one of his friends, who claimed that the tailor had felt pressured into giving a dramatic demonstration to attract sponsors, without whom he could not expect to make a profit before any patent expired.

[21] Reichelt came momentarily to prominence again in the 1940s in the United States, when his likeness was claimed as the model for one of the figures that were "strangely un-American in expression and garb" in the WPA-funded mural at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York.

[22] In an incident reminiscent of the 1933 controversy over Diego Rivera's Man at the Crossroads mural at Rockefeller Center, a furore erupted over an image depicting two minor leftist aviators, supposedly flanking a central portrait of Joseph Stalin.

The WPA already had an unwanted reputation as being sympathetic to the left, and despite the artist August Henkel's "glib" explanation of the "accidental" inclusion of a Soviet red star and his claim that the image identified as Stalin was actually of Reichelt, the murals were taken down and three of the four panels burned.

[23] The story of Reichelt's misadventure was also the subject of a 1993 French short film, Le Tailleur Autrichien, written and directed by Pablo Lopez Paredes and starring Bruce Myers in the title role.