Retired astronaut William Anders, one of the first three humans to orbit the moon and capture the famed "Earthrise" photo during NASA's Apollo 8 mission in 1968, died on Friday in the crash of a small airplane in Washington state. He was 90.

NASA chief Bill Nelson paid tribute to Anders on social media with a post of the iconic image of Earth rising over the lunar horizon, saying the former Air Force pilot "offered to humanity among the deepest of gifts an astronaut can give."

The Heritage Flight Museum near Burlington, Washington, which he co-founded, confirmed Anders' death in an aircraft accident.

Anders was piloting the plane alone when it went down off the coast of Jones Island, part of the San Juan Islands archipelago north of Seattle, between Washington and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, The Seattle Times reported, citing his son, Greg.

According to television station KCPQ-TV, a Fox affiliate in Tacoma, Anders, a resident of San Juan County, was at the controls of a vintage Air Force single-engine T-34 Mentor that he owned.