Just before midday on April 21st, 1962, President John F. Kennedy, at his Florida vacation house punched a telegraph key to start the opening festivities at the Century 21 World's Fair in Seattle. A swarm of ten Air Force F102s (Blue Angels) blasted overhead as the bells of the Space Needle Carillon tolled. Few people in the audience noticed that there were now just nine planes when the aircraft flew by again.
One of the aircraft, flown by Captain Joseph Wildt, flamed up at 1,500 feet on its second pass. The pilot pretty quickly realized that he he had to parachute out after trying to restart the engine twice, to no avail. Wildt had programmed the controls to drop the aircraft into Lake Washington, but his ejection (and loss of weight in the aircraft) changed the trajectory, taking it three miles beyond his original destination and into a residential area directly south of the King /Snohomish County border. Coincidentally, my wife grew up next door to one of the houses that was struck (though was born a few decades after this happened), and had no idea of this until I told her years ago (the cache is located at the beginning of the street so as to limit foot traffic at the house and on the dead end street).
Alexander Rutka, together with his spouse and four kids, was on vacation in Kelowna, British Columbia when the plane crashed into his home. Now engulfed in flames and bearing the wreckage of the Rutka house, the plane crashed into a house across the street and exploded. Raymond Smith and his spouse, Lillian, perished instantaneously within. There was additional damage to five nearby properties.
There was a potential for an even greater disaster though. On that street, the kids from the neighborhood used to play a lot and enjoyed a clubhouse that was constructed in one of the now-demolished trees. A parent named Frederick Haines had taken some of the kids to see Pinocchio, while some of the other kids were having fun at a local church with an Easter egg hunt, saving their lives that day.
However, there were still several kids present. When the plane struck, pieces of it flew into Mrs. Frederick Haines's house next door, (who was watching the opening day ceremonies for the Fair on TV), igniting the curtains on fire-. When she dashed outside to get a garden hose to put out the fire, she saw Jerry, a neighbor boy, age three, on her lawn. Although unharmed, the child was too stunned to cry.
Just as fair officials and their visitors were finishing their lunch in the Eye of the Needle restaurant, perched high atop the Space Needle, word of the crash broke around the fairgrounds. Initially, information was sporadic. Relief was expressed when news of the pilot's rescue by Lake Washington boaters spread, but the audience let out an agonizing cry when word spread that two individuals had died at the crash scene.
Air Force investigators in Mountlake Terrace got to work on the double, putting up heavy security and gathering pieces of wreckage from the plane. Metal fragments were scattered all over the neighborhood, and an engine was discovered smoking in a tree behind the Smith residence. Although an Air Force security official requested that no photos be taken due to the planes' classified status, there are several that exist.
Fifty years after the incident, Karl Rutka and Karleen Rutka Goodwin informed MLTnews, a local Mountlake Terrace news source, that their parents only got a $2,000–$3,000 settlement for everything, and that the government never adequately compensated them for losing their home. Their parents' health suffered as a result of losing their dream home, and both passed away in their early 60s.
Please, please be mindful of the road, cars like to speed down often. Please hide exactly where you found it. A pen is a must, and tweezers might also be handy. There is room only for the log. Please park on 244th, theres normally plenty of parking. To avoid irritating neighbors, please try to avoid turning onto this dead end.