![Getty Images Anders in a spacesuit](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/a7b0/live/0ff494c0-253b-11ef-a1c1-49870062a0ce.jpg.webp)
Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, who took one of the most famous photos from space, has died at the age of 90 in a plane crash.
Officials said the small aircraft he was piloting crashed in the waters off Washington state.
Anders' son Greg confirmed his father's body had been recovered Friday afternoon.
“The family is devastated. He was a great pilot. He will be missed,” the family said in a statement.
As the lunar module pilot for the Apollo 8 mission, Anders took the iconic Earthrise photo, one of the most memorable and inspiring images of Earth taken from space.
Taken on Christmas Eve 1968, the first manned space flight to leave Earth and reach the Moon, this photo shows the planet rising above the horizon from the barren lunar surface.
Anders later described this as his most important contribution to the space program.
![NASA Earth peaks behind the Moon in iconic photo](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/2fe7/live/30f99000-2539-11ef-be62-25b7c9183194.png.webp)
This image is widely credited with motivating the global environmental movement and creating Earth Day, an annual event that promotes awareness and activism to protect the planet.
Anders said of that moment: “We came all this way to explore the moon, but the most important thing we discovered was Earth.”
Officials said Anders' plane crashed around 11:40 Pacific Time (PDT) (1940BST).
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the 90-year-old was piloting a Beechcraft AA 45, also known as a T-34. The agency said the plane crashed about 25 meters off the coast of Johns Island.
Witness Philip Person said: King TV In Seattle, he witnessed a crash.
The plane started doing what appeared to be a loop and flipped over, he told the network.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing before my eyes,” Person told a local news station. “It looked like something out of a movie or special effects. There were big explosions, fire, everything.”
Video believed to have captured the plane crash appears to show a last-minute effort to stop the car before it surfaced and became a burning wreck.
BBC News has not confirmed the video.
Anders also served as a backup pilot for the Apollo 11 mission, the namesake effort that led to the first moon landing on July 24, 1969.
After Anders retired from the space program in 1969, the former astronaut worked primarily in the aerospace industry for several decades. He also served as U.S. ambassador to Norway for one year in the 1970s.
But he is best remembered for the Apollo 8 mission and the iconic photos he took from space.
“During Apollo 8 in 1968, Bill Anders gave humanity one of the most profound gifts an astronaut can give: He traveled to the threshold of the Moon and helped us all see something else: ourselves. said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. name.
Former astronaut Mark Kelly, now a senator from Arizona, said Anders “was an inspiration to me and generations of astronauts and explorers. My thoughts are with his family and friends,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. said in .