William Anders, a retired American astronaut who flew on the 1968 Apollo 8 mission which orbited the moon for the first time, was killed while flying a small plane near the house of a friend, when he crashed into a lake.
The 90 year-old pilot was killed in the waters near Orcas Island in the state of Washington early in June of 2024. When the plane hit the water, it exploded in a spectacular fireball that was caught on video.
Anders was the the photographer of NASA’s famous 1968 “Earthrise” image, the first to show the Earth as a distant blue marble with the surface of the moon in the foreground. He had texted his friend to say that he’d be doing a fly-by of his beach house on Orcas Island before the flight, according to a premilinary report issued by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
Anders’ friend said that such fly-bys, where he would rock the wings to wave “hello,” were a fairly common activity for the astronaut, but he never indulged in any aerobatics.
When the friend heard the familiar sound of Anders’ plane at 11:37 AM on the 7th of June, she looked out the window, and soon saw his Beech A45 aircraft overhead, flying north along the shore. When the plane flew behind some trees, she lost site of it for a few minutes, and then caught the view again as it circled back to head south flying low over the water.
After it passed, the left wing dipped as if to waggle, but then it continued to drop and the plane smashed into the surface of the water after a sharp vertical dive. The plane then sank to the bottom of the waters near the north end of Jones Island, across a strait from Orcas Island’s western shore.
The NTSB has recovered the wreckage and put it in storage, pending further examination and investigation.
