Update | Tri-Cities scientist dies in crash on I-90. He was returning home from a gaming event

A Richland man died Sunday evening when he crashed his 2016 Corvette on Interstate 90 between Cle Elum and Ellensburg.

Alexander D. Pappas, 36, was driving east at 7:30 p.m. when he lost control of his car and hit a guardrail on the right side of the eastbound lanes, according to the Washington State Patrol.

His car then continued down the road until it hit the embankment on the right side of the interstate and came to a stop in the ditch.

Pappas died before he could be taken to a hospital. He was wearing a seat belt, according to the state patrol.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation. The right lane was blocked for about three hours.

Friends posted on social media that he was returning to the Tri-Cities after attending a tabletop war gaming event in Seattle.

“An amazing dude whose loss will be sorely missed,” posted a fellow gamer. “Alex’s laugh & smile will never be forgotten and he will be forever part of our community and will never be forgotten.”

Pappas was a professionally licensed geologist and worked as an engineering program manager for Washington River Protection Solutions at the Hanford nuclear reservation site for seven years before taking a job as a senior project manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific about a year ago, according to his LinkedIn profile.

“There are no words to describe the sadness that hung over us today,” Washington River Protection Solutions posted on social media Monday evening. Counseling was available to employees.

“For years, Alex worked at WRPS as an engineer, exploring and championing new ideas,” the Hanford contractor posted. “He was a mentor to many of our interns.”

Friends and coworkers remembered Pappas as kind and enthusiastic.

The Support, Advocacy and Resource Center, or SARC, in Richland, posted that Pappas had volunteered one summer at its summer day camp for children impacted by violence.

“On career day he brought rocks and displays and talked to the kids about being a geologist,” according to SARC. “The children absolutely loved him. One young camper said he now wanted to go to college and become a geologist because of Alex.”