Retired astronaut William Anders, who was one of the first three humans to orbit the moon, capturing the famed Earthrise photo during Nasa ’s Apollo 8 mission in 1968, died on Friday in the crash of a small aeroplane in Washington state. He was 90. Nasa chief Bill Nelson paid tribute to Mr Anders on social media with a post of the well-known image of Earth rising over the lunar horizon, saying the former Air Force pilot “offered to humanity among the deepest of gifts an astronaut can give”.
The Heritage Flight Museum near Burlington, Washington, which he cofounded, confirmed that Mr Anders was killed in an aircraft crash. Anders was piloting the plane alone when it went down off the coast of Jones Island, part of the San Juan Islands archipelago north of Seattle, between Washington and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, The Seattle Times reported, citing his son, Greg. READ MORE Beau Biden: The abiding tragedy at the core of the US president China may be wise to act soon on a peace plan for Ukraine What Hunter Biden’s trial tells us about the US India election: Policy of ignoring grassroots problems dampens Modi performance at polls According to television station KCPQ-TV, a Fox affiliate in Tacoma, Anders, a resident of San Juan County, was at the controls of a vintage Air Force single-engine T-34 Mentor that he owned.
Video footage showed on KCPQ showed a plane plunging from the skies in a steep dive before slamming into the water just offshore. A US Naval Academy .
