85th anniversary of 1st flight around the globe

A parking lot next to a playing field in Seattle's Magnuson Park was once part of the landing field where the first pilots to navigate the globe by air touched down in September 1924 to cheers from a crowd of thousands.

The aviation feat — which has been likened to the Lewis and Clark expedition and the first moon landing — was remembered on Sunday, when a small crowd of fewer than 100 people gathered on a grassy hillside overlooking Lake Washington to mark the 85th anniversary of the epic trip. On that day, two of the four Douglas World Cruisers landed along with a third plane that had joined the journey after its predecessor sank off Scotland.

"These old airplanes to us look like fragile, fabric-and-wood contraptions but ... they were as high-tech as you could get at the time," said Bob Dempster, executive director of the Seattle World Cruiser Association who plans to retrace the 1924 flight path in a replica Douglas World Cruiser in spring 2011.

On April 6, 1924, four airplanes — named Seattle, Chicago, Boston and New Orleans — took off from what was then the Sand Point Naval Air Station. The Seattle didn't get far, crashing in heavy fog into a mountain near Port Moller on the Alaska Peninsula three weeks later, less than 1,500 nautical miles from the city that gave it its name. Ten days after the crash, the two crew members aboard hiked out of the wilderness, according to a historical account from the Web site, didyouknow.org.

The Boston, which was forced down in the North Atlantic, sank off Scotland in August 1924, but a prototype — called Boston II — was sent to Nova Scotia, Canada, and rejoined the flight. The Chicago, New Orleans and Boston II landed at the Sand Point station on Sept. 28, 1924, after a 27,553-mile trip that took 175 days with stops in 22 countries, 14 states and three Canadian provinces.

Before the journey, the U.S. Navy distributed 30 replacement engines to various countries and during the flight, dozens of nations contributed gasoline to the effort.

"It was quite a feat, truly," said Lt. Cmdr. Jim Sketchley, the commanding officer of the Sea Cadet unit based at Naval Station Everett, which provided a color guard for Sunday's event.

According to Dempster, the 50th anniversary of the first around-the-world air journey was quite a local celebration. But the 75th anniversary was somehow forgotten. "Who knows why?" he asked.

The first flight around the world, which began and ended in Seattle, is really the "second aviation milestone after the Wright Brothers," Dempster said, referring to the builders of the world's first successful airplane.

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com