Mother and Aunt Await Word of Glendale Girl

On the wall of a small artist’s studio in a nondescript two-story building hangs a citation from the Los Angeles City Council, proclaiming Tiffany Kang first runner-up in the city’s 1997 Human Relations Art Contest.

That studio is where 8-year-old Tiffany’s mother, Kelly Kang, and her aunt, Meena Parks, both of Glendale, waited Tuesday by a telephone to find out whether Tiffany survived the crash of Korean Air Flight 801 in Guam.

Above them hung the citation and a photograph of Tiffany, shyly standing before the council in a white dress to accept her award. The little girl was aboard the plane with her mother’s other sister, Meejin Park Lee of South Korea, and 10 other Korean relatives, when it crashed.

“She is very good at the art,” the aunt said. “She is a straight A student.”

The studio is where Tiffany’s mother teaches art.

Meena Park’s husband died in another crash involving the same airline in 1983. He was aboard Korean Air Flight 007, which was shot down at sea by a missile fired from a Soviet fighter plane.

“Fourteen years ago,” Park said, “they released the names after 12 hours. I would have hoped they could have improved since then.”

Tiffany’s mother, a flight attendant for Korean Air for 11 years, spent all of her time on the phone, trying to get through to anyone in Guam who could tell her what had become of her daughter.

“Pray for Tiffany and for my whole family,” she told one caller.

Neighbors in the quiet, well-kept, ethnically mixed neighborhood in Glendale where her mother and aunt have lived with Tiffany described the girl as an accomplished pianist who liked to play with her pet pug dog.

After Tiffany finished the second grade at Christian Montessori School in Montrose, her mother sent her to South Korea for the summer to spend time with her family, neighbors said.

Tiffany flew to Seoul by herself on June 24 and stayed with relatives, then joined them on the flight to a vacation spot in Guam.

The aunt spoke to Tiffany by phone recently, and the little girl asked, “Is my dog OK? Is my turtle OK?” the aunt recalled, wiping tears from her eyes.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.