Willem Anders, an astronaut who was one of the first three people to orbit the moon and who took the famous “Earthrise” photo, died Friday after a small plane he was in crashed into the water north of Seattle, according to NASA , local officials and his family. He was 90.
The Coast Guard for the Pacific Northwest said just before 1 p.m. local time that it and the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office responded to a plane crash between Orcas and Jones Islands, which are about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Seattle.
The sheriff’s office said only the pilot was in the two-seater plane. A body was recovered and the pilot’s identification was retrieved, the report said.
Anders’ son, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Greg Anders, confirmed the death to The Associated Press.
“The family is devastated,” Greg Anders said, according to the news agency. “He was a great pilot and we will miss him terribly.”
NASA Administrator Senator Bill Nelson offered his condolences.
“In 1968, during Apollo 8, Bill Anders offered humanity one of the greatest gifts an astronaut can give. He traveled to the threshold of the moon and helped us all see something else: ourselves. He embodied the lessons and the purpose of exploration. We will miss him,” Nelson wrote on X.
The first report of the plane crash came into the San Juan Sheriff’s Office dispatch center around 11:40 a.m. Friday, Sheriff Eric Peter said, and authorities responded. The report was that an older model airplane flew from north to south, entered the water and sank.
A woman who answered a phone number for Nelson and did not give her name said the astronaut was believed to be on the plane and declined to comment further.
The Apollo 8 mission was launched 55 years ago on December 21, 1968 to orbit the moon and return to Earth in preparation for the Apollo 11 moon landing the following year.
Anders was a lunar module pilot on the Apollo 8 mission. Also on the mission were Frank Borman, who was the commander, and James Lovell Jr. The mission turned out to be the command and service module.
Anders took the famous “Earthrise” photo that showed our world with the lunar horizon in the foreground.
The “Earthrise” photo was an unexpected surprise. Anders’ main task during the moon’s orbit was to take photographs of the moon’s surface.
On the third time they saw the earth rising above the horizon.
“Oh my God! Look at that picture there,” he said during the space mission. There’s the Earth coming up. Wow, that’s beautiful.”
Borman, the commander, joked that he was not allowed to take the photo because it was not on the flight plan.
“When the Earth appeared above the lunar horizon, it really impressed me how much more fragile and colorful the Earth was,” Anders said in an interview on the TODAY show in 2018 to mark the moon’s 50th anniversary. the groundbreaking mission.
Anders said in that interview that he believed he had a one in three chance of not surviving the Apollo 8 mission.
After about 25 hours of flying, Anders started taking pictures. A photo of the entire Earth from space in color, the first ever, is Anders’ favorite shot.
Anders was born in Hong Kong on October 17, 1933. He had four sons and two daughters.
He was also the backup pilot for the Gemini XI mission and the Apollo 11 mission that actually landed the first humans on the moon on July 20, 1969.
The National Transportation Safety Board said the crashed plane was a Beech A45 and the agency is investigating the crash.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona, a former astronaut, wrote on X that Anders was a source of inspiration.
“Bill Anders forever changed our perspective of our planet and ourselves with his famous Earthrise photo on Apollo 8. He inspired me and generations of astronauts and explorers. My thoughts are with his family and friends,” Kelly wrote.
Anders served as an Air Force fighter pilot in interceptor squadrons and was selected as an astronaut in 1964. In 2018, he joked to NBC’s Harry Smith: “I’m probably the best fighter pilot in the world, but we don’t talk to each other. about that.”
“I have to say that even today, when I look up and see that little crescent moon, my hair rises a little bit on the back of my neck,” Anders said at the time.
CORRECTION (June 7, 2024, 10:45 PM ET): An earlier version of this article misrepresented when the Apollo 11 moon landing occurred. It was July 20, 1969, not July 24.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
