EVERETT – A small Russian airplane crashed into a Rucker Hill neighborhood on Saturday, killing the plane’s pilot and nearly hitting a house.

The red, white and blue Yakovlev 55 aircraft slammed into a back yard about 1:20 p.m. in the 500 block of Sharon Crest, just minutes after the pilot radioed Paine Field Airport to report engine problems, Everett police Sgt. Robert Goetz said.

Neighbors said the experimental acrobatic airplane burst into flames on impact. It struck the ground so hard the earth sank beneath it. The flames melted the siding on the nearby house, about 5 feet away from the mangled plane’s tail.

The pilot died at the scene.

“It was pretty terrifying,” said Rosie Scherueble, who lives next door and was looking out her back window when the plane crashed in front of her. “I feel really sorry for the families involved. What can you do? What can you say?”

Information about the pilot was unavailable Saturday. His wallet and identification were found in the wreckage, National Transportation Safety Board investigator Jim Struhsaker said.

The NTSB and Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the crash.

Nobody was in the home where the plane crashed, Goetz said. The homeowners were out of town, he said.

The pilot may have been trying to land in a small field next to a reservoir about 300 yards away, Goetz said.

“It would have been difficult, but unfortunately he didn’t make it,” Goetz said.

The plane took off from Paine Field about 9:30 a.m. Saturday, and was due back to land about 1:30 p.m., Struhsaker said.

Saturday was the Arlington Northwest EAA Fly-in at the Arlington Airport. Investigators were trying to determine whether the pilot had flown there that morning.

When the crash happened, Everett firefighters arrived within minutes and extinguished the flaming wreckage.

A handful of neighbors were first on the scene, but there was little they could do.

Neighbor Jack Scherueble, Rosie Scherueble’s husband, said he heard a loud boom as he got out of the shower. When his wife told him a plane had crashed, he told her to call 911. He quickly put on sweats and a flannel shirt and ran outside.

Jack Scherueble, a former Everett Fire Department captain, had hoped to save the pilot. When he saw the wreckage, he instead grabbed his garden hose and tried to keep the flames from spreading.

“There would have been no way,” Scherueble said. “It was burning really bad.”

Meanwhile, a postal worker ran from door to door, telling residents that a plane had crashed and to stay in their homes.

Two people who live down Rucker Hill drove to Sharon Crest and joined Scherueble in his yard, but the heat from the blaze rendered them powerless.

“When we figured out there wasn’t anyone to get out of there, we started looking at the roof and the surrounding trees to make sure there were no fires,” said Christopher Yue, one of the two other people who came to help.

Yue said his wife, Della, was outside in their garden when she noticed the aircraft flying in from the north.

She yelled at Yue as the aircraft’s sputtering engine seemed to die, then restart, shooting out a cloud of black smoke, Yue said. Moments later, her shouts grew more urgent as the plane’s engine began sputtering again. Then the plane did a half-circle, pointing toward their home, he said.

The plane was flying northeast, straight toward the field next to the reservoir, Yue said. Suddenly, it began losing altitude.

Yue ran outside.

“By that time, it had already gone below the tree line,” he said. “A split second later, it hit and I heard the big boom.”

The wreckage was surreal, Yue said. The only signs of damage to the house were the melted siding near the roof and a scrape on the concrete patio. It looked as if someone had used a crane to set the wreckage in the back yard, he said.

Also, the plane came to rest facing the south – the opposite direction it had been flying when it began losing altitude, Yue said.

Rosie Scherueble believes the pilot knew what he was doing as he plummeted toward the ground.

“The pilot must have guided the plane to miss our homes, which I’m grateful to him for,” she said. “But I’m sorry he had to die.”

Reporter Scott Pesznecker: 425-339-3436 or spesznecker@heraldnet.com.