On Friday, state police in New Jersey said that Glen de Vries, who traveled to space the previous month with actor William Shatner on a Blue Origin rocket ship, died in an aircraft accident.
In an accident in Sussex County, N.J. on Thursday night near New York City, two men were killed: 49-year-old Thomas De Vries and 54-year-old Thomas Fischer.
One person was killed and two others were injured when the plane crashed down in a New Jersey state park approximately 40 minutes before sundown. The FAA is investigating the tragedy.
Other formal information on the accident’s circumstances was unavailable at the time of this writing.
Jeff Bezos tweeted that it is a devastating loss. He exuded warmth and vitality. He was a joy to be around and made everyone laugh. Bezos said that Glen was a visionary and a trailblazer, the epitome of what it means to be a leader.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship sent Glen de Vries, a private pilot and the founder of the clinical research business Medidata Solutions, on a suborbital joyride to space last month.
Shatner, best remembered for his portrayal as Captain James Kirk on the 1960s television series Star Trek, was one of those four New Shepard passengers. With the launch on October 13, Shatner became the oldest person ever to go into orbit.
Chris Boshuizen, a former NASA engineer, and Audrey Powers, a vice president of Blue Origin, were the other crew members on that voyage.
According to a professional summary of De Vries given by Blue Origin when he was selected as one of the four New Shepard passengers, Medidata Solutions, which he founded in 1999, is the most widely utilized clinical research platform in the world.
In 2019, Dassault Systemes, a French software corporation, purchased Medidata, a business specializing in life sciences and healthcare. The Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Mellon University acted as a trustee for him as well.
