Anders died in a plane crash in the water north of Seattle, Washington, on June 7, 2024. He was flying a Beechcraft T-34 Mentor, a single-engined, military trainer that was part of the inventory of the Heritage Flight Museum that he had founded. He was 90 years old. 

Anders was a fighter pilot, helicopter pilot, and astronaut who lived in Rhode Island for much of the 1980s while serving as a Textron executive.  he was inducted into the  RI Aviation Hall of Fame in 2010.

Anders was one of the first three people to orbit the moon and took the iconic “Earthrise” photo in 1968. The photo shows the Earth rising over the Moon’s horizon.