North Shore Native Was Sole Crew Member To Die In Dive Boat Fire

SANTA BARBARA, CA — A North Shore native who left a career in Hollywood to pursue a graduate degree in marine biology was the lone crew member killed among 34 people who died aboard a scuba diving boat when they were trapped below deck after it caught fire before sinking on Labor Day off the coast of Southern California.

Alexandra "Allie" Kurtz, 26, grew up in Evanston and Northbrook before moving to Cincinnati, living in London, and later relocating to Santa Monica, where she worked for Paramount Pictures. She left that job to work for Santa Barbara-based diving company Truth Aquatics. She was remembered as adventurous and inspirational by family and friends around the world, according to multiple reports.

"She left this world doing something she absolutely loved. This was her dream, and she was finally able to fulfill this dream," Olivia Kurtz, 20, told the Associated Press. Allie Kurtz's sister, Olivia flew to California following the disaster. Her sister died on her second voyage after being promoted as a deckhand aboard the Conception.

Kurtz's grandmother, Doris Lapporte, of Skokie, told the AP her late granddaughter loved scuba diving and hoped to one day own her own boat. The month of her death, she had been certified as a diver in Australia and aimed to work there during the off season in California. The former Glenbrook North student, who was on the school's swim and dive teams, used to joke she was "going to be a pirate one day," Lapporte said.

Sheri McDonough, Kurtz's mother, told NPR her daughter "wanted to follow the dream of the ocean and the sea and diving." Speaking to reporters after traveling from Ohio to California in the wake of her daughter's death, McDonough said she "never thought I would have to go through this."

Brian Pianko, Kurtz's former boss and Paramount's worldwide executive vice president of creative adverting, said she began as an executive assistant to a creative advertising manager in 2014, eventually becoming an advertising manager herself. Pianko told the Hollywood Reporter he was "sure I'd be working for her if she stayed, she just found a greater purpose in life."

Kurtz studied theater in London before leaving school to help produce reality television shows. After moving back to the United States she took environmental science classes at the University of California in Los Angeles, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. She planned to get a degree in marine biology.

"In a way," her grandfather, Allen Lapporte, told WLS, "it's a loss to the world to have someone like Allie gone."

Kurtz also did volunteer work to help wounded sea lions, with the environmental nonprofit Reef Check California, according to the AP and the Reporter.

The 79-foot Conception caught fire with 33 passengers and six crew members aboard amid a three-day scuba diving trip off the Channel Islands. Federal investigators executed served warrants on the Truth Aquatics headquarters and two other boats it owns Sunday morning.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board are looking into why no one who was below deck on the dive boat was able to escape the deadly blaze. The boat had recently passed safety inspections.

Allie's father, Rob Kurtz, told the AP the family planned to scatter his daughter's ashes at sea.

"Though Allie is not here physically with us, she is here spiritually among us all," her father said on an online fundraiser started by a family friend.

"Allie had a heart of gold, and lived her life on her terms. She left the movie industry to follow her love of boating and scuba diving," her father said. "The only sense of comfort right now is knowing she passed doing what she loved. I will always love you and will miss you forever! You became the pirate you wanted to be, now sail away."

Related:

• FBI Raids Dive Company In Boat Fire That Killed 34 People
• California Boat Fire: 34 Presumed Dead, Rescue Suspended
• Boat Fire; 20 Bodies Found, 14 Missing And Feared Dead: Report