dozens of people who perished as flames engulfed a dive boat off Sourn California coast came from many walks of life. y included two high schoolers, a hairdresser, a marine biologist, software engineers, a special effects designer for Disney, a nature photographer, a nurse and a family of five celebrating a birthday. 

ir common love of scuba diving brought m to ruggedly beautiful coastline of Channel Islands for a three-day excursion. Thirty-four people died when Conception caught fire before dawn on Labor Day as it anchored off Santa Cruz Island. 

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From fun to flames 

Flames above deck blocked one stairway and an emergency exit hatch leing from sleeping bunks to upper decks and gave those below virtually chance of getting out, authorities said. 

Only one person remained missing on Wednesday. Divers pulled 33 bodies from seabed and charred wreck of sunken, overturned boat. Five crew members, including captain, were above deck and mand to escape. only crew member to die was Allie Kurtz, 26, who quit her corporate job at Paramount Pictures to work on dive boats. Kurtz, who grew up in Illiis, h recently been promoted to deckhand. 

“Her love was just always, always water,” Kurtz’s grandmor, Doris Lapporte, 71, told Associated Press in a phone interview. “She would joke, ‘I am going to be a pirate one day.’” captain, boat’s owner, and ors were interviewed for hours as National Transportation Safety Board investigated fire, NTSB member Jennifer Homendy said Tuesday. 

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Four crew members were given tests for alcohol, which were negative, and all five survivors h drug tests but results are pending, Homendy said. Conception wasn’t required by federal regulation to have fire sprinklers aboard, according to U.S. Coast Guard. 

deceased

Those killed included Apple engineer Steve Salika and his wife, Diana amic, who went on trip with ir daughter Tia Salika to celebrate teen’s 17th birthday, company senior vice president Deirdre O’Brien told Mercury News newspaper. Apple colleague Dan Garcia joined m. 

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Tia was with Berenic Felipe, a fellow student at Pacific Collegiate Charter School in Santa Cruz, according to a letter sent to school community obtained by NBC News. Also aboard was visual effects designer Charles McIlvain, who was kwn for his work on films such as “Spider-Man” and “Green Lantern.” 

 Lisa Fiedler was a 52-year-old hairdresser and photographer from community of Mill Valley rth of San Francisco, her mor, Nancy Fiedler, told San Francisco’s ABC affiliate, KGO television. San Francisco-based Education platform Brilliant confirmed that senior software engineer Carrie McLaughlin and Kristian Takvam, vice president of engineering, were aboard. 

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