Man killed in publicity jump from Eiffel Tower

PARIS — A Norwegian man who leaped off the Eiffel Tower in a publicity stunt was killed after his parachute got stuck on an upper deck of the monument and came off, officials said yesterday.

Preliminary investigations indicate the man planned to film his jump as part of a publicity stunt for a Norwegian clothing brand, police said. The man, 31, entered the tower with a hidden parachute and a helmet that had a small video camera attached to it, an official at Paris' police headquarters said on condition of anonymity.

When the man reached the tower's second deck 380 feet up Monday evening, he jumped. Investigators think his parachute got caught on the tower's structure and detached.

The man continued his fall, crashing onto the 182-foot-high first deck of the Paris landmark, according to police and an official for SNTE, the company that manages the tower.

Hundreds of people have died at the tower, which is 1,063 feet tall with its flagpole, since it opened as a star attraction of the 1889 World's Fair.

Most of the deaths were suicides, but the tower also has long attracted daredevils. Franz Reichel, an Austrian tailor, was killed leaping from the first deck in 1912 to test a parachute coat he had invented. He is said to have died of fright before hitting the ground.

A British couple successfully parachuted from the top deck in 1984, and a New Zealander bungee-jumped off the second floor in 1987.