William Anders Dies

 

The Apollo 8 astronaut and former diplomat William Anders has died. This is sad and his loved ones have my deepest condolences. The manner of his demise has an almost Hollywood like romanticism. He was flying a Beechcraft T34 Mentor, a 1950's vintage military training aircraft. He flew low over Puget Sound in Washington USA when the plane was seen to attempt some kind of aerobatic and then dropped nose first into the water. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcCftcjQ0EU. Mr Anders' body was recovered. It has not been stated whether the remains of the aircraft was. It is likely it sank; in which case, can it be salvaged from the seabed? This will be essential for any coroner's enquiry to established why he died. He was ninety years old and maybe that's too old to fly solo. However, he was a perfectly qualified pilot with over eight thousand hours experience including active interception missions with the US Air Force. He broke no current FAA flying regulations. He was the US ambassador to Norway from 1976 to '77; but he is most famous for being one of the three astronauts aboard Apollo 8, the first manned spacecraft to leave earth orbit and fly to the moon. This mission had no lunar module and it was seven months later that the first landing on the moon took place with Neil Armstrong and Apollo 11. However, Apollo 8 was famous for being the first ever manned mission to the moon... supposedly. Mr Anders was most famous for taking some unique photographs including some of the first ever of the earth from deep space. One is called "Earthrise" and is particularly powerful, showing our home planet above the lunar horizon. I can't help but ask, had he said something to somebody? I hope the rest of his family are safe. If any "accidents" happen to them too, we must shout it loud.
See here for background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2020/12/moon-landing-portal.html.