Getty ImagesApollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, who took one of the most famous photographs taken in space, has died in a plane crash at the age of 90.
Authorities say a small plane he was piloting crashed into the sea off Washington state.
Anders’ son Greg confirmed his father’s body was found Friday afternoon.
“The family is devastated. He was an excellent pilot. We will miss him,” read a statement from the family.
Anders – who was a lunar module pilot on the Apollo 8 mission – took the iconic Earthrise photograph, one of the most memorable and inspiring images of Earth from space.
Taken on Christmas Eve during the 1968 mission, the first crewed space flight to leave Earth and reach the Moon, the photo shows the planet rising above the horizon from the barren lunar surface.
Anders later described it as his most significant contribution to the space program.
NASAThe image is widely credited with motivating the global environmental movement and leading to the creation of Earth Day, an annual event aimed at promoting activism and awareness about protecting the planet.
Speaking of that moment, Anders said: “We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing we discovered was the Earth.”
Officials said Anders’ plane crashed around 11:40 a.m. PDT (1940BST).
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the 90-year-old was piloting a Beechcraft AA 45, also known as a T-34. The agency said the plane crashed about 25 meters off the coast of Jones Island.
Witness Philip Person said King-TV it was in Seattle that he saw the accident.
The plane began doing what appeared to be a loop and reversed itself, he told the network.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing before my eyes,” Person told the local news station. “It looked like something straight out of a movie or special effects. With the big explosion and the flames and everything.”
Footage believed to have captured the plane crash appears to show an effort to get up at the last second, before it hits the water’s surface and becomes a burning wreck.
BBC News has not verified the video.
Anders also served as a backup pilot for the Apollo 11 mission, the name of the effort that led to the first moon landing on July 24, 1969.
After Anders retired from the space program in 1969, the former astronaut worked extensively in the aerospace industry for several decades. He also served as the United States Ambassador to Norway for a year in the 1970s.
But he is best remembered for the Apollo 8 mission and the iconic photograph he took from space.
“In 1968, during Apollo 8, Bill Anders gave humanity one of the most precious gifts an astronaut could give. He traveled to the edge of the Moon and helped us all to see something else: ourselves,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. statement.
In a previous interview, he explained that he took it after having received “a little training in photography”.
He said: “We were in lunar orbit, upside down and in reverse, so for the first few revolutions we didn’t see the Earth, then we twisted the spacecraft to go forward and everything Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw this color – it was shocking.
“So I just took a picture, moved it, took a picture, moved it.”
Mark Kelly, a former astronaut who is now a U.S. senator for the state of Arizona, said in a post on ‘explorers. My thoughts are with his family and friends. .
