Medical analysis software program mogul Glen de Vries, who flew to house final month with actor William Shatner aboard a rocketship operated by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, died in a small aircraft crash in New Jersey, state police stated on Friday.
The aircraft crashed on Thursday in Sussex County, New Jersey, simply northwest of New York Metropolis, police stated, including that De Vries, 49, and one other man aboard the plane, Thomas Fischer, 54, had been killed.
The plane, a single-engine Cessna 172, went down in a wooded space of a state park close to Lake Kemah, New Jersey, about 40 minutes earlier than sundown, in keeping with the Federal Aviation Administration, which is investigating the crash.
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No different official particulars surrounding the circumstances of the accident had been instantly out there.
“Such a tragic loss. Heat and vigorous, Glen made us snicker and lit up the room. He was a visionary, and an innovator — a real chief,” Bezos, Blue Origin’s founder and government chairman of on-line retail large Amazon.com, stated on Twitter, including he was “heartbroken.”
De Vries, an instrument-rated non-public pilot and founding father of the scientific analysis firm Medidata Options, soared to house final month in a suborbital joyride aboard the New Shepard rocketship of astro-tourism enterprise Blue Origin, using together with three different civilian crew members.
Essentially the most notable of the 4 New Shepard passengers was Shatner, the 90-year-old actor greatest recognized for his function as Captain James T. Kirk on the unique Sixties tv present Star Trek. The Oct. 13 launch made Shatner the oldest particular person ever to fly into house.
The 2 different crewmates for that flight had been former NASA engineer Chris Boshuizen and Blue Origin Vice President Audrey Powers.
Medidata Options, shaped by de Vries in 1999, ranks because the world’s most-used scientific analysis platform, in keeping with a profession profile of de Vries that Blue Origin posted when he was chosen as one of many 4 New Shepard passengers.
He was vice-chair of life sciences and well being care on the French software program firm Dassault Systemes, which acquired Medidata in 2019. He additionally served as a trustee of Carnegie Mellon College in Pittsburgh.
