Retired Maj. Gen. William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic “Earthrise” photo that showed the planet as a shadowy blue marble from space in 1968, died Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters of the San Juan Islands in the state of Washington. He was 90 years old.
His son, Greg Anders, confirmed the death to CBS News, saying the plane that crashed belonged to his father. San Juan County Sheriff Eric Peter told CBS News that crews were searching the area, but no bodies had yet been recovered.
Around 11:40 a.m., a report came in that an older model plane had crashed into the water and gone down near the north end of Jones Island, Peter said.
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Only the pilot was aboard the Beech A45 plane at the time, according to the Federal Aviation Association.
Peter said the sheriff's office, US Coast Guard and state Department of Fish and Wildlife personnel responded to conduct search and rescue efforts. and a team of divers also headed to the crash site.
The National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA are investigating.
Anders, who was born in Hong Kong on October 17, 1933, attended the US Naval Academy and the Air Force Institute of Technology before being selected as an astronaut in the NASA space program in 1964.
He logged more than 6,000 hours of flight time, according to his NASA biography, serving as backup pilot on the Gemini XI and Apollo 11 flights, and as the lunar module pilot for Apollo 8.
Anders said the photo was his most significant contribution to the space program, given the ecological philosophical impact it had, as well as making sure the Apollo 8 Command Module and Service Module worked.
NASA/Headquarters
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson wrote on social media Friday night that Anders “traveled to the Moon's doorstep” on the Apollo 8 mission “and helped us all see another thing: to ourselves. He embodied the lessons and purpose of exploration. We will miss him.”
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 exploratory reasons to go ahead. He estimated that there was about a one in three chance that the crew would not return and an equal chance that the mission would succeed and an equal chance that the mission would fail to begin. He said he suspected Christopher Columbus was sailing with worse odds.
He explained how the earth seemed frail and seemingly physically insignificant, but he was home.
“We had gone backwards and upside down, we didn't really see the Earth or the Sun, and when we turned around and came back and we saw the first exit from the Earth,” he said. “That was definitely the most impressive thing. Seeing this very delicate and colorful orb that to me looked like a Christmas tree ornament rising above this very stark and ugly lunar landscape really contrasted.”
