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Sorry, I got a bit confused myself! Dolgov cracked his faceplate on exiting the gondola, hence his death during descent. He was testing the then-new Sokol pressure suit for the Soviet Vostok program.

Kittinger's jump is still the highest (albeit unofficial) jump attempted - and yes, it was drogue assisted. He was testing the Beaupre Multi stage Opening system as the last part of Project Excelsior. Some of the above postings are confusing a number of incidents. As part of Project Volga, Yevgenny (Eugene) Andreev jumped from 82 750 ft, setting the current FAI record. This was in 1962, and the death of another Soviet flyer (Dolgov) occurred on the same day - he jumped from 94 000 ft as part of testing of Soviet space capsule ejection systems, and for some reason had a premature opening in the region of 90000ft. He froze to death or ran out of oxygen ( or both). Nick Piantanida was a civilian who wanted to break both records in 1965-66. He did reach 123 000ft in his balloon, but couldn't release his oxygen disconnector prior to the jump, and the balloon gondola returned to Earth by use of its own parachute ( with him still inside). For this reason, Piantanida's flight, the highest ever attained by humans in a balloon, is NOT an FAI ballooning record - this is held by Navy Lts Vic Prather and Malcolm Ross, who reached 113 000ft in a balloon launched from a US Navy ship in 1961. One of them subsequently drowned in recovery ops. Piantanida was killed when he tried to go for the record again in 1966. He suffered explosive decompression at 57 000ft .....his gondola was recovered by parachute automated release, and he was in a coma for three months before he died. This is the most severe case of high-altitude explosive decompression ever documented. A tragic history post-Kittinger...........

There are a number of interesting issues surrounding Kittinger's jump. The origin of the supersonic claim may well be that Kittinger has often quoted a figure of 714 mph, as opposed to 614 mph ( the actual value). At 90 000ft with ambient temp, pressure and air density ( all of which have second order if not first order contibutions towards determination of Mach 1) then 714 would be supersonic. Perhaps he has just believed the misquoted figure rather than the validated one. Also, he reported a choking sensation from his neck collar at about this time, suggesting there was a buildup of the transonic pressure wave that one would start to experience at Mach 0.95 or thereabouts. Apart from the drogue issue ( to solve the stability problem that caused him to black out on a previous jump from 74 000 ft due to a flat spin in 1959), the FAI require that an official FAI observer be present at landing for such a record attempt to qualify. Hence the OFFICIAL FAI record of 82 750 ft was set in 1962 as part of Project Volga in the Soviet Union by Yevgenny ('Eugene') Andreev. I myself don't think he went supersonic for the simple reason that the drogue ( which was an addition to the Beaupre Multi Stage Parachute rig he was testing) would almost certainly have been shredded during the transition from transonic to supersonic airflow.........The Colonel still remains an aviation legend, though!!