REYKJAVIK, ICELAND — A 22-year-old who graduated from a Union County high school and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill died after his plane went missing on Feb. 3 in Iceland.
Josh Neuman was an avid skateboarder and a social media influencer with over a million followers on YouTube and nearly 200,000 followers on Instagram.
Neuman graduated from Marvin Ridge High School in Waxhaw before attending UNC-Chapel Hill. After graduating, he went into content creation full-time, posting videos of his longboarding on YouTube and updating followers on his travels around the world as he created content for big brands.
On Thursday, he was flying in a Cessna 172 plane. The plane didn’t send a distress signal after disappearing from radar, officials said. More than 1,000 members of Iceland’s Search and Rescue organization helped locate the plane.
Icelandic police said they found the remains of all four men on Sunday in Lake Thingvallavatn, near the capital city of Reykjavik.
Their remains were found at the bottom of the lake at a depth of 37 meters.
Authorities said they were prepared to dive in after them, but had to stop due to the weather conditions to ensure the safety of the divers.
Neuman was on the flight with the three other men to create a commercial for the Belgian fashion brand Suspicious Antwerp.
The company released a statement on their website saying it was in a state of mourning.
“The loss of our close friends has left all of us at Suspicious Antwerp in a state of mourning. We want to express our immense gratitude to everyone for their support, condolences and love. The same gratitude goes out to the emergency services, volunteers and many others that have been and are still working selflessly day and night to help the loved ones find closure.”
Neuman’s family released a statement on his Instagram, thanking his followers for their continued support.
Part of the statement read, “Josh didn’t just live life, he was life, and he lived every day to the fullest extent possible while being kind to everyone.”
His family said he died doing what he loved and that after witnessing the Northern Lights in Iceland for the first time he had commented saying, “This is the happiest day of my life.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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