'Mad' Mike Hughes, the daredevil Flat Earth enthusiast who garnered worldwide headlines with his homemade rocket launch back in 2018, sadly passed away this weekend when an attempt at exceeding his previous feat turned tragic. The accident reportedly occurred on Saturday morning near the California city of Barstow when Hughes took to the sky in a steam-powered vessel of his own creation with the goal of reaching an altitude

As a crowd of onlookers and a camera crew from the Science Channel watched in horror, the Hughes-piloted rocket soared into the air before quickly plummeting to the ground. At the start of the launch, which can be seen above in a video one of the parachutes designed to safely bring the vessel back down to Earth can be seen tearing away from the rocket. This likely set off a chain of events wherein the remaining three parachutes subsequently failed to deploy, leading to the daredevil's demise.