Plane Crash Kills Head Of Firm That Developed Westlake Center

BOSTON - The developer whose firm built Seattle's Westlake Center was killed, along with his wife and daughter, when their private plane crashed between two houses yesterday.

The two houses went up in flames, but their occupants escaped injury.

Killed were pilot Michael Spear, 49, president of The Rouse Co., his wife, Judy, 47, and their 19-year-old daughter, Jodi, police said.

In addition to Westlake Center, a 120-000-square-foot shopping center that opened in October 1988, the company's projects include Boston's Faneuil Hall shopping area, Harbor Place on the Baltimore waterfront, South Street Seaport in New York and Underground Atlanta and Seattle's Westlake Center.

``This is a terrible loss to the Rouse Co. and to the country,'' said James W. Rouse, retired founder of the Columbia, Md.-based company. ``Mike Spear was a brilliant, compassionate, wise man. His leadership was tremendous. In many respects, he is irreplaceable. Judy was a wonderful woman who made a great contribution in her own right, as well as to Mike's work.''

The Spears lived in Columbia, Md. but had a summer home in Chatham on Cape Cod.

Spear joined Rouse in 1967 as director of market research and project evaluation. From 1971 to 1978, he was general manager of the Columbia project that established the planned city between Baltimore and Washington. Spear was named executive vice president for development in 1978. He became president in 1986. He and his wife had three other daughters.

Federal officials are investigating the cause of the crash.

The plane went down on a dead-end street in the city's Mattapan section. The small white airplane crashed into a driveway between two houses, incinerating two cars parked there and setting the houses on fire.

The aircraft was 20 miles from Logan International Airport when Spear reported engine trouble, said Michael Ciccarelli, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. About seven miles from the airport he began efforts to land.

Spear first reported lack of speed, then smoke, then that an engine was out. At 6:30 a.m. the plane disappeared from the radar screen.

People in the neighborhood said they heard a low-flying aircraft, the sound of an engine cutting out and then a thud as the plane hit the ground.