Former astronaut William Anders, who took the iconic Earthrise photo, died in plane crash in Washington

SEATTLE (AP) – William Andersthe old one Apollo 8 The astronaut who took the iconic “Earthrise” photo showing the planet as a shadowy blue marble seen from space in 1968 was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone crashed into the waters off the San Juan Islands in the state of Washington. He was 90 years old.

His son, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Greg Anders, confirmed the death to the Associated Press.

“The family is devastated,” he said. “He was a great driver and we will miss him very much.”

William Anders, a retired major general, said the photo was his most significant contribution to the space program, other than ensuring that Apollo 8’s command module and service module worked.

The photograph, the first color image of Earth seen from space, is one of the most important photos in modern history for the way it changed the way humans viewed the planet. The photo is credited with sparking the global environmental movement by showing how delicate and isolated Earth looked from space.

NASA administrator and former senator Bill Nelson said Anders embodied the lessons and purpose of exploration.

“He traveled to the edge of the Moon and helped us all see something else: ourselves,” Nelson wrote on the social platform X.

Anders took the photo during the crew’s fourth orbit of the moon, frantically switching from black-and-white film to color film.

“Oh my God, look at that picture over there!” Anderson said. “There is the Earth rising. Wow, this is beautiful!

O Apollo 8 Mission in December 1968 it was the first human spaceflight to leave low Earth orbit and travel to the Moon and back. It was NASA’s boldest and perhaps most dangerous trip, and it set the stage for the Apollo moon landing seven months later.

“Bill Anders forever changed our perspective of our planet and ourselves with his famous Apollo 8 Earthrise photo,” wrote Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, who is also a retired NASA astronaut, in the X. “He inspired to me and to generations of astronauts and explorers. My thoughts are with his family and friends.”

A report came in about 11:40 a.m. that an older model plane had crashed into the water and sank near the north end of Jones Island, San Juan County Sheriff Eric Peter said. Greg Anders confirmed to KING-TV that his father’s body was recovered Friday afternoon.

Only the pilot was aboard the Beech A45 plane at the time, according to the Federal Aviation Association.

The National Transportation Safety Board and FAA are investigating the crash.

William Anders said in a 1997 NASA oral history interview that he did not think the Apollo 8 mission was risk-free, but that there were important national, patriotic and exploration reasons to proceed. He estimated that there was about a one in three chance that the crew would not make it back and the same chance that the mission would be a success and the same chance that the mission would not start. He said he suspects Christopher Columbus sailed with worse odds.

He told how Earth seemed fragile and seemingly physically insignificant, but he was home.

“We were walking backwards and upside down, we didn’t really see the Earth or the Sun, and when we rolled over and turned around and we saw the first Earthrise,” he said. “That was certainly by far the most impressive thing. Seeing this very delicate and colorful orb that to me looked like a Christmas tree ornament rising above this ugly and stark lunar landscape was really contrasting.

Anders said, in retrospect, that he wished he had taken more photos, but mission commander Frank Borman was concerned about whether everyone was rested and forced Anders and command module pilot James A. Lovell Jr. to take more photos.

Chip Fletcher, a professor at the University of Hawaii who has conducted extensive research on coastal erosion and climate change, remembers seeing the photograph when he was a child.

“It just opened my brain to realize that we are alone, but we are together,” he said, adding that it still influences him today.

“It’s one of those images that never leaves my mind,” he said. “And I think that applies to many, many people in many professions.”

Anders served as a backup crew for Apollo 11 and Gemini XI in 1966, but the Apollo 8 mission was the only time he flew into space.

Anders was born on October 17, 1933, in Hong Kong. At the time, his father was a Navy lieutenant aboard the USS Panay, a US gunboat on the Yangtze River in China.

Anders and his wife, Valerie, founded the Heritage Flight Museum in Washington state in 1996. It is currently located at a regional airport in Burlington and features 15 aircraft, several vintage military vehicles, a library and many artifacts donated by veterans, according to museum website. Two of his sons helped him run it.

The couple moved to Orcas Island in the San Juan Archipelago in 1993 and maintained a second home in their hometown of San Diego, according to a biography on the museum’s website. They had six children and 13 grandchildren. His current Washington home was in Anacortes.

Anders graduated from the Naval Academy in 1955 and served as a fighter pilot in the Air Force.

He later served on the Atomic Energy Commission, as US chairman of the joint US-USSR technology exchange program for nuclear fission and fusion energy, and as ambassador to Norway. He later worked for General Electric and General Dynamics, according to his NASA Biography.

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McAvoy reported from Honolulu. Associated Press writer Lisa Baumann contributed to this report.