Stolen plane flown by Wasilla High grad crashed on property owned by family with ties to the Valley
WASILLA — Connections to Alaska and the Mat-Su Valley continue to surface as authorities investigate the theft of an airplane at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Friday night, and the subsequent death of a former Wasilla man.
Gary Lundgren, chairman of Global Finance and Investments, said his family owns about 65 percent of Ketron Island, including the undeveloped piece of land where Russell crashed the plane and died.
Lundgren said Ketron Island is sparsely populated, with 12 to 14 homes and about 18 people living on the island, which is separated by only about a half-mile of water from Stellacoom, Washington, home of about 6,000 people.
He said his family bought the property from Donald Morris, another Alaskan, in about 1973. The Morris family had owned the property since 1945.
“It’s a real coincidence. It really surprised me,” Lundgren said. “We’ve got a presence in Wasilla.”
Lundgren’s company owns Alaska Mini Storage and Wasilla Business Plaza.
Lundgren also battled the city of Wasilla for years in courtrooms in a land dispute over property where the Menard Sports Center now sits.
“That was in litigation, it went on for nine years,” Lundgren, now 77, said.
Lundgren, who grew up in Fairbanks, currently owns 11 pieces of property in the Mat-Su Borough.