A Blue Origin crew member who went to space with William Shatner last month was killed along with another person when a small plane crashed in northern New Jersey on Thursday.
Glen M de Vries, 49, of New York City, and Thomas P Fischer, 54, of Hopatcong, were aboard the single-engine Cessna 172 that went down in a wooded area of Hampton Township.
De Vries was the founder of tech company Medidata Solutions, and served as a trustee at Carnegie Mellon University. He was aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft on October 13 along with Shatner and others, where they spent more than 10 minutes in space.
In a social media post he called it his ‘oldest, and lifelong enduring dream’ to go to space.
Fischer owned the family-run Fischer Aviation, where he was the head flight instructor.
The aircraft had departed from Essex County Airport in Caldwell and was headed to Sussex Airport when the Federal Aviation Administration alerted public safety agencies to look for the missing plane around 3pm.
Emergency crews found the wreckage around 4 pm, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash.
This is a breaking news story, check back for updates…
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