The taxi driver who featured in Tuesday's footage of Felix Baumgartner's jump from Taipei 101 told reporters he did not drive the Austrian skydiver to Taoyuan International Airport as the footage suggested.
Baumgartner entered Taiwan on a tourist visa on Dec. 6 to scout the area before deciding to do the jump on Tuesday.
Baumgartner was quoted as telling the Austrian press agency: "On Tuesday there was no wind -- so I got my helpers together and told them -- now or never."
Baumgartner's aides videotaped the adventure, which showed him getting past security guards and leaping from Taipei 101's observation deck and landing on top of a parking lot nearby. An electronic clock on a billboard in the background showed the time was "16:17."
The footage then showed Baumgartner, clutching a parachute, climb into a waiting taxi and head for the airport. He was on a flight to Hong Kong two hours later.
The taxi driver, who enjoyed a brief brush with fame after his car registration plate was caught in the video showing Baumgartner getting into a cab after performing the leap, was hunted down by the press on Thursday.
STAGED
The driver, surnamed Chen (
One of the women, a Taiwan-ese, told him they were making a film and wanted to pay him to participate.
A foreigner in the group -- a male actor -- then ran toward the car carrying some equipment on his back, opened the right-hand rear door and threw himself into the car -- repeating the scene fives times, Chen said.
Chen said there were four men with video cameras inside and around the car shooting the scene from different angles.
They also shot a second scene showing the taxi turning a street corner at high speed, Chen said.
The whole episode was over in 30 minutes, he said.
Chen said the group left in a van after paying him, adding that he never took Baumgartner anywhere.
The National Immigration Agency said on Thursday that Baumgartner was barred from entering Taiwan again.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods