William Anders, astronaut who participated in the 1968 Apollo 8 missionwhich first orbited the Moon, and took the famous photo of the “rising Earth”, he died at the age of 90 in the crash of a plane he was piloting in Washington state. “My father died in a plane crash on the San Juan Islands, the family is devastated and mourns the death of a great pilot,” his son, Greg Anders, told CNN.
The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office said a plane is crashed into the sea off the coast of Jones Island. The Coast Guard then announced that a team of divers recovered the body of the pilot, the only one on board the two-seater, described as an “old model of aircraft”.
Born in October 1933 in Hong Kong, Anders attended the United States Naval Academy and then joined the US Air Force, becoming a fighter pilot. In 1964 he was selected by NASA as an astronaut, participating in several missions. The Apollo 8 mission was launched on December 21, 1968 to orbit the Moon in preparation for the Apollo 11 mission which arrived at the moon the following year. Anders was the lunar module pilotFrank Borman, who was the commander, and James Lovell Jr. also participated in the mission.
