American astronaut William Anders, a member of the Apollo-8 mission, died on Friday, June 7 at the age of 90 in a plane crash.
“My father died in a plane crash in the San Juan Islands”on the northwestern tip of the United States, his son Gregory Anders told the American television channel CNN.
William Anders commemorated space exploration with a symbolic photograph Earthworm, taken during the Apollo 8 mission, the first to orbit the Moon. In this photo from Christmas Eve 1968, the blue planet stands out from the darkness, with the surface of the Moon in the foreground.
He “gave humanity one of the most precious gifts an astronaut can give. He traveled to the edge of the Moon and helped us all see something else: ourselves.”wrote NASA administrator Bill Nelson on the social network
Former fighter pilot in the US Army
William Anders “he forever changed our view of our planet and ourselves with his famous photograph (…) He inspired me and generations of astronauts”reacted former NASA astronaut and US senator Mark Kelly on the same social network.
The Apollo 8 mission took off in December 1968 with William Anders and two other astronauts, Frank Borman and James Lovell. Before becoming an astronaut, William Anders served as a fighter pilot in the United States Army.
Earlier on Friday, local authorities reported that an older model plane crashed late in the morning near the coast of one of the San Juan Islands in the US state of Washington. An investigation has been opened to determine the circumstances of this accident. County Sheriff Eric Peter told Agence France-Presse that crews were searching the area but had yet to find any bodies.