Retired astronaut William Anders, who was one of the first three people to orbit the moon and took the famous “Earthrise” photo during NASA’s Apollo 8 mission in 1968, died Friday in a small plane crash in Washington state at the age of He is approximately 90 years old.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson praised Anders on social media by posting the iconic image of Earth rising above the lunar horizon, saying the former Air Force pilot “gave humanity one of the most valuable gifts an astronaut can give.”
The Seattle Times reported, citing Anders’ son Greg, that Anders was flying the plane alone when it crashed off the coast of Jones Island, part of the San Juan Islands archipelago north of Seattle, between Washington and Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
According to KCBQ, a Fox affiliate in Tacoma, Anders, a San Juan County resident, was flying an old Air Force T-34 Mentor single-engine plane he owned.
Video footage shown by the channel showed a plane descending from the sky in a sharp descent before colliding with the waters directly off the coast.
Anders, a graduate of the US Naval Academy and an Air Force pilot, joined NASA in 1963 as a member of the third group of astronauts. He did not go into space until December 21, 1968, when the Apollo 8 mission was launched on the first manned mission to leave Earth’s orbit and travel a distance of 386 thousand kilometers to the moon.
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