Fliers Are Honored in Service at Crash Site

Relatives and friends of three fliers who died last week in a midair collision off Long Beach made a solemn voyage to the crash site Wednesday afternoon to spread flowers on the sea and hold a memorial service.

About 30 people boarded two U.S. Coast Guard cutters at the agency’s headquarters on Terminal Island. In blustery weather and over choppy waters, they traveled about 30 minutes to an area near the accident scene, at the Queen’s Gate entrance to Long Beach Harbor.

“It was a beautiful ceremony,” said Jennifer Wallace, 22, sister of 18-year-old Michael Wallace of La Habra Heights, who was one of the four crash victims. “It was how Michael would have wanted it.”

Accompanying the mourners were a Coast Guard chaplain and a Buddhist monk, who helped lead services on the sterns of the cutters, the Point Stuart and the Point Bridge. (Relatives of the fourth man killed in the accident held a separate service earlier in the day.)

On one of the cutters, a bagpiper played “Amazing Grace.” Two nearby boats from the Long Beach Fire Department sent plumes of water into the sky as a salute. Mourners released four balloons, each bearing a name of one of the dead men, and then dropped wreaths of flowers into the sea at 3:43 p.m., coinciding with the reported time of the Feb. 15 crash.

Divers last week found the bodies of John Michael Chisolm, 56, a flight instructor from Huntington Beach, and his student, Stephen Arlow, 42, a flight instructor trainee, also from Huntington Beach.

Missing and presumed dead are Kevin Sok, 33, a Cambodian native who lived in Long Beach, and Sok’s student, Wallace, who was on his first training flight.

After Wednesday’s ceremony, Art Wallace said: “My son died doing what he loved. He wanted to be an airline pilot, and he was working toward that goal at the time he was killed. Flying was always something he wanted to do.”

Arlow’s family did not participate in the ceremony at sea. They held a service Wednesday morning at Calvary Chapel South Bay in Torrance. Sok’s relatives held a Buddhist ceremony at the young man’s Long Beach home before attending the crash site event.

Reporters were not allowed on the cutters, but some media representatives were on another boat and at the dock. Most of the mourners declined to talk to reporters.

The accident occurred off the Long Beach breakwater in a training area heavily used by student pilots and their instructors. Witnesses said one of the planes was banking to the left at an altitude of about 1,000 feet when it broadsided the other aircraft.

Although the cause of the crash has not been determined, there has been speculation that the occupants of neither airplane, a Cessna 172 and a Cessna 152, could see well seconds before impact.

Results of an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board are not expected for months. Officials hope to raise the wreckage of the one aircraft that has been located on the ocean floor.

Both single-engine planes belonged to the Long Beach Flying Club.

Candy Robinson, the club’s owner, said she will make several recommendations to the collision avoidance program of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Assn., a national organization.

Robinson proposes that aircraft entering the training area be required to have their lights on during the day. She also said she would like to establish a special radio frequency so pilots using the area can communicate with each other.

“I hope to put some heads together and come up with a few good ideas to improve safety out there,” Robinson said.

Pilots say the training area can be very busy on a clear day. The mix of constantly maneuvering aircraft and inexperienced students can be risky, they said, requiring pilots and their instructors to be constantly vigilant to avoid collisions.