Lasting Tribute to Crash Victims

Three years ago, 88 travelers boarded a plane in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, most of them bound back to their workaday world in the U.S. after a relaxing tropical getaway.

On Friday, some 400 of their friends and relatives dedicated an oceanfront sculpture to their memory.

All 83 passengers and five crew members aboard Alaska Airlines Flight 261 died when their MD-83 jet slammed into the Pacific Ocean off the Ventura County coast.

The anguish was just as deep at Friday’s dedication on a Port Hueneme beach as it has been at previous annual observances. Survivors of the victims wept, tossed roses into the surf and listened somberly as the names of the dead were read aloud.

But this time they could see their grief given form.

On the shore just a few miles from the site of the deep-sea crash, Santa Barbara sculptor James “Bud” Bottoms has crafted a 20-foot-wide cement sundial with a bronze dolphin family leaping out of its base.

During Friday’s ceremony, Pam Sparks -- the mother of 20-year-old victim Ryan Sparks -- gingerly inserted a bronze heart in a niche chiseled into the sundial’s face. Each day that spot will be crossed by shadow at 4:22 p.m., the time Flight 261 went down.

Bordered with small plaques naming each victim, the monument sits amid gently rolling, ice plant-covered dunes and commands a stunning view of Anacapa Island. Donations of some $400,000 to build and maintain it came from the families, Ventura County residents and Alaska Airlines. The site was donated by the city of Port Hueneme.

“I find some comfort in it,” said Frances Prasad, a Seattle hospital worker whose nephew, Anjesh Prasad, died in the crash with two of his cousins. “It will be a good place to come from time to time and sit down to pray.”

The monument also was meant as a thank you for the compassion shown by Ventura County emergency workers and other residents who pitched in during the disaster.

“Port Hueneme and Ventura County just opened their hearts to us,” said Patty Sanchez, whose daughter, Colleen Whorley, died with her fiance, Monte Donaldson. “When I see it, I think of the community being here for us. You can’t help but feel a little better.”

That was the hope of sculptor Bottoms, a 75-year-old artist who drew his inspiration for the piece both from Chumash creation myths and his 90-year-old mentor, artist Mike Dolas.

Bottoms’ trademark dolphins adorn monuments and fountains in California and beyond. In fact, they rise from a fountain in front of Puerto Vallarta’s city hall -- a landmark where a number of travelers on the doomed flight were photographed not long before taking off.

“Dolphins mean joy,” Bottoms said. “They lift your heart when you see them.”

Bottoms said he visited the site a number of times at night to do the meticulous measurements required to make the sundial accurate.

“The gnomon [the piece that casts a shadow] has to point exactly toward the North Star,” he said.

Bottoms spoke briefly at Friday’s observance, as did Ventura County Supervisor Kathy Long, Port Hueneme Mayor Jon Sharkey, and Steve Campbell, the former Port Hueneme police chief who was the families’ point man on the project.

Four Coast Guard vessels, including a cutter that participated in the Flight 261 recovery efforts, bobbed in the waters just offshore. A Coast Guard helicopter saluted the crowd with several low passes overhead.

As the name of each victim was read, a relative came forward and placed a rose in a groove just above the corresponding memorial plaque. Many kissed their flowers before leaving them. After all 88 victims were commemorated, a bagpiper slowly trod beside the dunes. Playing “Amazing Grace,” he led the mourners to the ocean yards away.

Many wore pins with the smiling faces of their loved ones. Some of the pins pictured entire families that perished.

Dr. Charles Clemetson, a psychiatrist from Yarmouth, Maine, lost his brother, his sister-in-law and their four children. He tried to leave a red notebook on the monument along with a flower, but he was dissuaded. In large block letters, the cover of the notebook read: “Corporate Greed Killed These People -- The Evidence.”

Clemetson contends that top Alaska Airlines officials are “guilty of second-degree murder” in the crash. An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board found that the company cut corners on maintenance and sometimes did so with the permission of the FAA. The airline, which says it has improved its procedures, has yet to settle lawsuits with about 40 of the surviving families.