Astronaut Jim Lovell, who guided the Apollo 13 mission safely back to Earth in 1970, has died aged 97. Nasa said he had "turned a potential tragedy into a success" after an attempt to land on the Moon was aborted because of an explosion onboard the spacecraft while it was hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth.

Once America's most experienced astronaut, Apollo 13's Jim Lovell, who died at 97, was the first to visit the moon twice.

US astronaut Jim Lovell, the commander of the Apollo 13 Moon mission which nearly ended in disaster in 1970 after a mid-flight explosion, has died at the age of 97, NASA announced Friday.