A businessman who travelled to space with William Shatner last month has died after a small plane crashed in New Jersey.

Glen M de Vries, 49, had been aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft on 13 October, spending more than 10 minutes in space after launching along with Shatner and others.

He was killed along with another person in the New Jersey crash, state police said.

The plane, a single-engine Cessna 172, went down on Thursday in a wooded area of Hampton Township, in the northern part of the state.

The Federal Aviation Administration alerted public safety agencies to look for the missing plane in the afternoon.

Emergency crews found the wreckage about an hour later.

Mr de Vries was the founder of Medidata Solutions, a clinical research company.

The other person killed in the crash was Thomas P. Fischer, 54. the founder of a family-run flight school and its head instructor.