Glen de Vries, a businessman who flew to space with "Star Trek" actor William Shatner on last month's Blue Origin flight has reportedly died in a small plane crash in New Jersey.
The small aircraft crashed in Hampton Township, New Jersey, about 95 kilometers west of New York City, shortly before 3:00 pm (1900 GMT) on Thursday, a spokesman for New Jersey state police told AFP.
"There are two confirmed fatalities," the spokesman said, naming de Vries, 49, and 54-year-old Thomas Fischer.
"The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) will be the lead investigating agency," he added, without providing more details.
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De Vries, co-founder of a tech company, traveled aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft on Oct. 13, spending more than 10 minutes in space after launching along with Shatner and others aboard a ship built by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company.
“It’s going to take me a while to be able to describe it. It was incredible,” de Vries said as he got his Blue Origin “astronaut wings” pinned onto his blue flight suit by Bezos.
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De Vries co-founded Medidata Solutions, a software company specializing in clinical research, and was the vice chair of life sciences and health care at Dassault Systemes, which acquired Medidata in 2019.
He had taken part in an auction for a seat on the first flight and bought a seat on the second trip.
De Vries also served on the board of Carnegie Mellon University.
