Helicopter crash victim Alyssa Altobelli is remembered with vigil and retirement of her school jersey

Teenagers mourn Alyssa Altobelli during a candlelight vigil and memorial ceremony Thursday evening at Mariners Park in Newport Beach. Alyssa, an eighth-grader at Newport's Ensign Intermediate School, was among the nine people killed in a helicopter crash Sunday in Calabasas.

By Hillary Davis

Jan. 30, 2020 9:14 PM PT

Ellie Robinson said her best friend, Alyssa Altobelli, understood her like nobody else could.

“I planned to stay with Alyssa until the end,” Ellie said. “But I didn’t know the end would be so soon.”

Alyssa, 14, died Sunday when the helicopter she was riding in crashed into a hillside in Calabasas while en route to a club basketball game at Kobe Bryant’s Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks. Alyssa played on the Mamba team with Bryant’s daughter Gianna and Payton Chester, both of whom also died in the crash along with Bryant, Alyssa’s parents, John and Keri, Christina Mauser, Payton’s mother, Sarah, and pilot Ara Zobayan.

Like the Bryants, the Altobellis lived in Newport Beach, where Alyssa was an eighth-grader at Horace Ensign Intermediate School.

Hundreds of people turned out for a candlelight vigil Thursday evening at Mariners Park in Newport for Alyssa, who wore jersey No. 5 for Mamba and Ensign’s girls’ basketball teams. Many of the mourners wore green and gold, the colors of her dream college, the University of Oregon, which has a powerhouse women’s basketball team.

Photos of Alyssa Altobelli are set out as part of a makeshift memorial in honor of her on Thursday evening at Mariners Park in Newport Beach.

On a baseball diamond, where she also would have felt at home, having grown up with the Orange Coast College baseball team that her father coached, friends in shirts reading “Live like Lyssa” talked about how her mind and heart worked. They spoke of her work ethic, how she would be the first to offer a high-five to other players who scored and how she wanted to turn her bedroom into a basketball court.

She loved animals and wanted to see the koalas in Australia. In sixth grade, she brought home turtles from the classroom because she didn’t like how they were being treated.

Dylan Deshawn and Skyla Engelking read an autobiographical poem Alyssa wrote called “Where I’m From.””I am from holiday parties and competition/from John and Keri,” she wrote. “I am from comedians/I am from athletes/from let’s go outside and stay off electronics. I am from Christians, children of God and ones raised in a church.”

Hundreds gather for a candlelight vigil to remember Alyssa Altobelli on Thursday evening at Mariners Park in Newport Beach. Alyssa, her father, John, and mother, Keri, were among the nine people who died in Sunday's helicopter crash in Calabasas.

Tisha Hoch’s 13-year-old daughter Sadie was in third grade when she first played against Alyssa in the National Junior Basketball league. Hoch said she made a point to watch Alyssa play.

“I was just amazed at her skill level at such a young age,” she said. “She was so smooth. It looked like she wasn’t even trying.”

Sadie, who is in seventh grade at Ensign, said Alyssa was “just so sweet and so kind, and if she ever knocked you down she’d be the first person to help you up.”

As mourners held flickering candles, Alyssa’s friends released nine sky lanterns, one for each person lost in the crash. One drifted off much sooner than the rest, into the blue and pink ribbons of the sunset.

Jersey number retired

The basketball courts at Ensign Intermediate School, where Alyssa practiced her sport, saw new life Thursday morning as the first-period gym class gathered for its morning stretch.

Around the corner of the school, teddy bears, candles, notes and flowers in every shade of yellow clustered on a table beneath a silver No. 5 balloon glinting in the sun. The American flag was lowered to half staff.

Despite the bright sun and bursts of yellow, a cloud of grief clung to the air surrounding the building where Alyssa had been wrapping up her eighth-grade year.

“This week has been a lot about how grief affects the community,” said Jen Lambert, mother of another eighth-grade girl. “It’s been emotionally very tiring on the kids.”

Students and staff gathered Thursday afternoon for a ceremony to retire Alyssa’s basketball jersey number, 5, which now hangs in a frame in the school gym. Ensign has pledged never to give out another jersey No. 5.

Newport Beach Police Chief Jon Lewis, Fire Chief Jeff Boyles and Mayor Will O’Neill gathered to watch as Alyssa’s teammates, coach and close friends spoke. One student sang an original song written for her. Emotional-support puppies offered fluffy relief. The school community grieved. Together.

“I think our word of the week was ‘together,’” Principal Michael Sciacca said. “We’re going to grieve together, we’re going to hurt together. But we’re also going to remember together and heal together.”

Other mementos of Alyssa have been sprinkled throughout the school halls since Monday. In her first-period classroom, students filled her empty desk with notes. At lunchtime, a large trail of students passed by the cafeteria table where she usually sat, dropping off flowers, pictures, notes, balloons and a jersey.

James Hutton, father of eighth-grade twins, said Alyssa was in his daughter Ava’s math class.

“The school is doing a great job of just trying to settle down,” Hutton said.

Grief counselors from the Newport-Mesa Unified School District’s crisis response team have been on hand for students to share their feelings about the loss of their classmate and other community members.

“The school’s handling of it has been broad and impeccable, and then community support has been far-reaching,” Lambert said. “It’s been one of those things where people come together.”

For many of the young people, Sunday’s tragedy was their first brush with grief.

“These kids, they live in a bubble in Newport, they have no idea what hardship is about. It’s requiring them to dig really deep and figure out certain hardships,” said Michael Acuña, who has a daughter who knew Alyssa both at Ensign and at Mariners Elementary School, also in Newport. “It’s super hard to wrap your brain around seeing someone one day and not the next.”

Acuña said he lost two friends in a commercial plane crash. When he would tell his daughter the story, she didn’t totally understand.

“Now she realizes,” he said.

Vanessa Bryant announces fund for victims’ families

Kobe Bryant’s wife, Vanessa, wrote Wednesday on Instagram that Bryant’s Mamba Sports Foundation “has set up the MambaOnThree Fund to help support the other families affected by this tragedy.”

Donations to the fund can be made at mambaonthree.org.

“There aren’t enough words to describe our pain right now,” she wrote. “I take comfort in knowing that Kobe and Gigi both knew that they were so deeply loved. We were so incredibly blessed to have them in our lives. I wish they were here with us forever. They were our beautiful blessings taken from us too soon.”

Memorial for Christina Mauser on Saturday in H.B.

A candlelight vigil for crash victim Christina Mauser, an assistant coach for the Mamba team and the mother of three, will begin at 6 p.m. Saturday in her home city at Huntington Beach Pier Plaza at Pacific Coast Highway and Main Street.

An online fundraiser for Mauser’s family had generated more than $246,000 as of Friday evening. To donate, go to gofundme.com and search for “Christina Mauser Family Support Fund.”

Daily Pilot staff writer Julia Sclafani and City Editor Rob Vardon contributed to this report.

Support our coverage by becoming a digital subscriber.