Marking 88 Lives One Year Later

Twelve months after Alaska Airlines Flight 261 plunged into the sea off Point Mugu, victims’ friends and family members paid tribute Tuesday, ferrying to the spot where the plane went down and attending a burial service at a Westlake Village cemetery.

For many relatives, these events have been the most public expression yet of the grief that penetrated their lives a year ago today. More than 850 people have come to Ventura County for the two-day observance, which was organized by a group of family members and paid for by the airline.

“We’ve had so many tributes, private memorials, and amazing moments with friends,” said Paige Stockley, a Seattle cellist whose parents, Margaret and Tom Stockley, died in the crash. “But this is something so huge, and most of the families want to be here. I can’t explain it--it’s like homing pigeons.”

Eighty-three passengers and five crew members died in the crash last Jan. 31. There were no survivors.

Last summer, Stockley, whose father was a wine columnist for the Seattle Times, helped kick off the planning for this week’s observances. At the dock where her parents moored their houseboat, Stockley and relatives of about 50 other crash victims sketched out plans not just for these ceremonies but also for a permanent memorial that will one day be situated near the Port Hueneme pier.

On Tuesday, Stockley and several other families toured the partially reconstructed wreckage of Flight 261 in a hangar at Point Mugu. “It was pretty shocking,” she said. “The airplane was in a million pieces. A lot of Kleenex were going around.”

Stockley said a National Transportation Safety Board investigator told family members at the hangar that the agency was committed to pinpointing the cause of the jetliner’s abrupt 18,000-foot plunge on its trip from Puerto Vallarta to San Francisco and then to Seattle.

A lawsuit against the airline and the plane’s manufacturer on behalf of 55 families incorporates claims of negligence. The first hearings related to the suit are set for March.

In boats piloted by local volunteers, about 60 family members embarked from Oxnard’s Channel Islands Harbor on Tuesday morning for a somber cruise to the crash site about eight miles offshore, near Anacapa Island.

Some clutched teddy bears that had been given to them by Red Cross volunteers and Ventura County emergency personnel.

“At first they looked puzzled,” Ventura County Fire Department spokeswoman Sandi Wells said. “But I told them it was just something to hold onto, and they understood.”

At sea, the boats slowly circled the crash site, where a wreath of roses bobbed in the waves. Some mourners hugged and some prayed alone. Others dangled their legs over the sides of their boats and turned their faces toward the sun before tossing carnations onto the water.

Some of the relatives flew from as far as the Philippines for the observances. A pregnant woman recently had her labor induced so she could attend with her newborn baby.

Earlene Shaw of Olympia, Wash., had been in Ventura County for two weeks, taking long, contemplative walks on the beach. Twelve months ago her husband, Donald, was returning on Flight 261 from Puerto Vallarta, where he was looking at a condominium the couple planned to buy for their retirement.

Glimpsing the crash site makes it “feel like you can get a little bit closer,” said Shaw, holding back tears. She was joined for the ceremonies by 21 of her relatives.

In the afternoon, California Highway Patrol officers escorted busloads of mourners to a private service at Pierce Bros. Valley Oaks Cemetery in Westlake Village.

Remains still unidentified--three victims are unaccounted for--were interred there beneath a stone inscribed: “To the spirits of the 88 lost. We celebrate their lives and remember them with love.”

Terry Sparks of Seattle, who lost his 20-year-old son, Ryan, wept.

“There’s some of all of us in there,” he said before the service.

Five clergymen, representing Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism, spoke at the memorial.

After 16-year-old Karla Gilbert, a niece of one of the victims, sang “Amazing Grace,” 88 white homing pigeons were released--one for each person lost.

The mourners’ day was to end with a dinner and performances by the Southern California Mormon Tabernacle Choir and operatic performer Kimball Wheeler, who sang a piece from Gustav Mahler’s “Songs on the Deaths of Children.”

“Being a mother myself, it’s always a bittersweet experience to sing these songs,” she said.

Today, a memorial stone will be dedicated and a private service held on the naval base at Point Mugu, where the initial efforts to search for survivors and retrieve wreckage were coordinated.

In addition, photographs and everyday mementos of the crash victims will be available for public viewing.

The “Circle of Love” display at Oxnard’s Performing Arts Center incorporates everyday items that were meaningful to the victims: a guitar, sewing machine, a snowboard ornamented with stickers. A homemade cross that drew mourners at Hueneme Beach for days after the crash stands in a corner with a cowboy hat tied to it.

The display is open from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. today.

Times staff writers Tina Dirmann, Tim Hughes, Matt Surman and Margaret Talev along with correspondent Jenifer Ragland contributed to this story.