Skydiver Felix Baumgartner faced many dangers during his historic, 24-mile leap on Sunday. But new video from his chest-mounted camera, which was pointed at his helmet, captures one particularly terrifying moment when the Austrian daredevil went into an uncontrolled spin.
Left unchecked, the high-velocity spin would have been life-threatening, forcing blood to Baumgartner's extremities and possibly out his ocular cavities, according to National Geographic.
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A clip of the brief crisis was shown on Austrian television, and can be seen below. A stabilization chute would have automatically deployed if Baumgartner had exceeded 3.5Gs in an uncontrolled spin, but he also had manual control of the safeguard.
In a press conference, Baumgartner revealed that he considered aborting his attempt to break the sound barrier once he was in the spin.
"There was a period of time where I really thought I'm in trouble," Baumgartner said. "Because I have a manual push button where I can release a drouge [stabilization] chute which pulls me out of the flat spin, but at the same I time I knew If I push that button, this thing is all over, we're not going to fly supersonic."
But that didn't prove necessary, as Baumgartner was able to correct his spin and land safely on the ground in New Mexico.
At a press conference on Sunday afternoon, the Red Bull Stratos team reported that the highest speed Baumgartner achieved during freefall was 833.9 mph.
According to the RBS mission website, the freefall speed needed to break the sound barrier from the altitude Baumgartner jumped is estimated to be about 690 miles per hour. To put that into perspective, the speed of sound at sea level is 761.207 miles per hour.
Baumgartner is the first human to break the speed of sound without the propulsion or protection of a vehicle, according to National Geographic. Red Bull's live stream of his attempt attracted more than 8 million viewers, making it the most-watched YouTube event of all time.
This post has been updated to include additional information about the sound barrier at Baumgarten's jump altitude.
LOOK: Felix Baumgartner's Historic Jump
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