ap photo Glen de Vries, right, takes a look as William Shatner, left, shows what rocket lift off did to his face during a media availability at the spaceport near Van Horn, Texas on Oct. 13. Glen de Vries, 49, and Thomas P. Fischer, 54, died in crash of a single-engine Cessna 172 that went down Thursday, in a wooded area of Hampton Township, N.J.

HAMPTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. — A man who traveled to space with William Shatner last month was killed along with another person when the small plane they were in crashed in a wooded area of northern New Jersey, according to state police.

The one-time space tourist Glen M. de Vries, 49, of New York City, and Thomas P. Fischer, 54, of Hopatcong, were aboard the single-engine Cessna 172 that went down Thursday.

De Vries was an instrument-rated private pilot, and Fischer owned a flight school. Authorities have not said who was piloting the small plane.

The plane had left Essex County Airport in Caldwell, on the edge of the New York City area, and was headed to Sussex Airport, in rural northwestern New Jersey, when the Federal Aviation Administration alerted public safety agencies to look for the missing plane around 3 p.m.

Emergency crews found the wreckage in Hampton Township around 4 p.m., the FAA said.

De Vries, co-founder of a tech company, took a 10-minute flight to the edge of space Oct. 13 aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft with Shatner and two others.

“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 Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos.