Herbert Nitsch - 'The deepest man on Earth'

Listen to this article For people with any degree of interest in freediving, the name Herbert Nitsch sparks immediate interest. For those who are not familiar with the name, Herbert is an Austrian native, 41 years old and holds 31 freediving world records. In his day job, he works part-time as a pilot for local

ByMarcin Pawelczyk

Published: January 4, 2012 - 14:26

Updated: February 9, 2023 - 10:23

Herbert Nitsch – ‘The deepest man on Earth’

Listen to this article

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For people with any degree of interest in freediving, the name Herbert Nitsch sparks immediate interest. For those who are not familiar with the name, Herbert is an Austrian native, 41 years old and holds 31 freediving world records. In his day job, he works part-time as a pilot for local airline Tyrolean Airways.

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However, when he is not busy flying, he devotes himself to free diving and does it in a truly masterful style. One of his biggest successes is setting a record in the no limits competition – 214m and obtaining the official title of “The deepest man on Earth”. This took place on 14 June 2007 in Spetses, Greece. Since then he has improved world records in other disciplines 11 more times.

But all this doesn’t seem to be enough for Herbert (or perhaps part-time pilots have too much free time on their hands?), because for 2012 he has planned to reach the 800ft/244m limit and improve on his feat of 5 years ago by 30m!

Not to be outdone by a bored master, Flying Fish, as he is known in the freediving community, has announced that this is just one stage of a larger project. The ultimate goal is absolute domination and overcoming of all barriers by descending to a depth of 1000 feet/305m!

For those who are interested in the technical part of Herbert’s dives, we have a small trailer announcing his dive to 244m, in the summer of 2012.