Mourning for Victims of Crash Changes Into More Public Gesture

Grieving for the victims of Flight 261, previously occurring mostly among small, spontaneous groups of mourners by the ocean side, took on more of a public dimension Thursday.

From a candlelight vigil at the pier in Port Hueneme, to a raucous Oxnard concert, to the launching of a campaign to build a permanent memorial, mourning became a shared and organized experience.

Perhaps the most public gesture of all came from a skywriter who blazed a cross and heart through the midday sky above the Santa Monica Mountains. Below, 200 relatives and friends of the victims mourned together on a private beach at the Point Mugu military base.

Hundreds of people flocked to large-scale vigils in Oxnard and Port Hueneme, the cities closest to the crash.

At the pier in Port Hueneme, an Oxnard family--cousins of two Seattle men, Anjes and Avini Prasad, among the 88 people to die in Monday’s crash--found themselves in a crowd of hundreds of neighbors who had come to mourn with them at sunset. Helium balloons were set loose in the sky as participants sang “Amazing Grace” by candlelight.

Earlier in the day, Alaska Airlines flight attendant Dedie Sandstrom, who had worked with many of the crew who died, found herself overwhelmed by the same growing public reaction. She brought a bouquet of white roses to the same pier to bid her colleagues a quiet, final farewell, only to find the pier already brimming with flowers from strangers.

The card she left with the flowers read: “To the best crew ever.”

The largest and most raucous outpouring of sympathy occurred at Silver Strand Beach in Oxnard, where members of 10 churches from Malibu to Goleta held a nighttime contemporary Christian concert that had teenagers clapping and dancing near the beach stage.

“We’re here to show our support and give our prayers to those who lost their loved ones,” said Margarita Flores, whose husband Johnny is pastor of the Santa Paula Vineyard Christian Fellowship.

Kelli Silverstein said she came with her 10-year-old son Arthur because “it helps bring closure to us.”

Arthur had trouble sleeping with the search helicopters buzzing above their Silver Strand home, Silverstein said.

“He woke up the day after the crash and said, ‘Mom, mom, did they find anybody alive?’

“It’s really affected our community,” she said. “It’s like this kind of thing doesn’t happen here; it’s so beautiful and protected. We’ve been listening to the helicopters through the night and the day, and it vibrates in our hearts.”

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The far more personal pain of the friends and relatives also became more public as Southern Californians tuned in on television to watch California Highway Patrol officers on motorcycles escort six busloads of mourners from their hotel in Los Angeles to a private beach on the Point Mugu naval base.

Inside the gates, they mourned the tragedy away from the throngs of reporters and others clamoring to connect with them.

Tears in their eyes, mothers, fathers and children gathered in small groups and leaned on one another for support, said Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), who attended the private ceremony at the base.

Some mourners split away for moments of reflection as the surf crashed nearby.

The relatives filled a large wooden chest with hundreds of multicolored flowers that a military helicopter ferried to the crash site about eight miles away and released into the ocean.

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Back on Family Beach, normally a reclusive getaway for military personnel and their families, mourners dropped flower petals into the afternoon surf, while the skywriter painted a tribute into the sky above the mountains.

John Kelly, CEO of Alaska Airlines, spoke of losing his corporate family, Gallegly said. Of the 88 victims, 40 were airline employees or their family members.

“You could see the pain; you could feel the pain,” Gallegly said. “Many of these people have come to know each other in the last hours and days. And they have established bonds that will last for the rest of their lives.”

Meanwhile, Port Hueneme resident Kimber Gunter, a childhood classmate of one crash victim, was raising money to erect a monument to stand in permanent memory of those who perished in the worst air or sea disaster in Ventura County history.

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The 47-year-old dental hygienist said she hasn’t participated in a fund-raiser since collecting money for the United Way as a sixth-grader. But she was moved to action when she learned that a man she had grown up with in Visalia had lost his life, along with his daughter, in the waters just miles from her home.

Gunter said she envisioned a memorial at the end of the pier in Port Hueneme displaying the victims’ names, a permanent display of the community’s respect and “a reminder of the delicacy of human life.”

Contributions to the memorial fund may be sent to Flight 261 Memorial Fund, c/o Ventura County Community Foundation, 1317 Del Norte Road, Suite 150, Camarillo CA 93010. Any unused funds will be donated to the Red Cross of America.

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FOCUS OF INVESTIGATION

Investigators are looking increasingly at the pilots’ actions before the violent plunge of Flight 261. A1

* PSYCHOLOGICAL TERROR

Responses to an airline crash are more visceral than in other disasters, according to experts. A1

* NEW CLIENTELE

Instead of anglers, Cisco’s has been taking boatloads of reporters and TV news crews out to the crash site. A16

* ANCHOR OVERCOME

KNBC Channel 4 anchor Chuck Henry became overwhelmed with grief during a televised moment of silence. A17

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Times staff writers Tina Dirmann and Daryl Kelley and Times Community News reporters Katie Cooper and Tony Lystra contributed to this story.