Retired American astronaut William Anders, who was part of the Apollo 8 mission in 1968, was attempting a solo flight near a friend’s house when the plane suddenly moved and crashed into a lake, killing him.
The 90-year-old man died after the small aircraft he was piloting crashed near Orcas Island in early June, causing a fireball to erupt as the plane hit the water, which was captured on video.
Anders, whose “Earthrise” photo showed the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, had texted a friend to say he planned to do a flyby near her home on the west coast of Orcas Island, the National Transportation Safety Board said in its preliminary report.
The friend said Anders’ flybys were not unusual, according to the NTSB.
She said he usually did two flybys and that although he sometimes moved the plane’s wings, he “never performed any kind of aerobatic maneuvers.”
Retired American astronaut William Anders, who was part of the Apollo 8 mission in 1968, was doing a flyby near a friend’s house when he crashed into a lake, killing him.
The 90-year-old man died after the small aircraft he was piloting crashed near Orcas Island in early June, causing a fireball as the plane hit the water, which was caught on video.
At about 11:37 a.m. on June 7, the friend began hearing the “familiar” noise from his plane, the NTSB said.
Shortly afterwards he saw the old Beech A45 model flying north along the coast opposite his house.
He briefly lost sight of the plane as it flew behind trees. When he saw it again, it was heading south and flying over water.
After passing through, he saw the left wing dropping and thought it was part of its routine. But the wing continued to drop as the plane plunged toward the water.
At the same time, another witness on the same shoreline north of Anders’ friend’s home was using his phone to film the vintage plane passing by, the NTSB said.
Throughout the video, the plane can be seen falling towards the water in a near-vertical dive before the tip of its right wing hits the water.
The friend and the person who took the video were the only two witnesses who came forward, the NTSB said.
The plane went down near the northern tip of Jones Island, which is off the western coast of Orcas Island, San Juan County Sheriff Eric Peter said.
Anders, whose “Earthrise” photo showed the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, had texted a friend to say he planned to do a flyby near her home on the west coast of Orcas Island, the National Transportation Safety Board said in its preliminary report.
This image from an NTSB investigation shows where a witness with a camera and a friend of Anders saw him crash.
The body of 90-year-old Anders was recovered that afternoon.
Most of the wreckage was recovered in the week following the crash and has been stored for further examination, the agency said.
Anders’ photograph ‘Earthrise,’ the first color image of Earth from space, is one of the most important photographs in modern history for the way it changed the way humans viewed the planet.
The photograph is credited with sparking the global environmental movement by showing how delicate and isolated the Earth appeared from space.
Anders, a retired general, said the photo was his most significant contribution to the space program, aside from making sure the Apollo 8 command module and service module worked.
The photograph, the first color image of Earth from space, is one of the most important photographs in modern history for the way it changed the way humans viewed the planet.
The photograph is credited with sparking the global environmental movement by showing how delicate and isolated the Earth appeared from space.
The astronauts were ordered to take photographs of potential lunar landing sites as they orbited 70 miles above the moon.
Anders, a retired general, said the photo was his most significant contribution to the space program, aside from making sure the Apollo 8 command module and service module worked.
Anders took a famous photograph of the Earth and part of the Moon’s surface, called Earthrise, during the Apollo 8 mission.
“We came to explore the Moon and what we discovered was the Earth,” Anders likes to say.
In July 1969, Apollo 8 was overshadowed by the Apollo 11 moon landing supported by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.
Borman and Anders never flew in space again, and Soviet cosmonauts never reached the Moon.
Anders recalled in a 1997 NASA oral history interview that he did not believe the Apollo 8 mission was risk-free, but that there were important national, patriotic and exploration reasons for going ahead.
He calculated that there was roughly a one in three chance that the crew would not return and an equal chance that the mission would be a success and an equal chance that the mission would not begin.
He said he suspected Christopher Columbus sailed into worse odds and told how the Earth seemed fragile and seemingly physically insignificant, but it was his home.
Anders said: ‘We had been going backwards and backwards, not really seeing the Earth or the Sun, and when we turned around, we came back and saw the first Earthrise.
“That was definitely the most impressive thing. Seeing this delicate, colorful orb that looked like a Christmas tree ornament to me rise above this stark, ugly lunar landscape was a real contrast.”
His son, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Greg Anders, told The Associated Press after his father’s death that the family was devastated.
“He was a great driver and we will miss him terribly,” he said.