A dozen or more elite figure skaters were onboard the American Eagle flight that collided midair with an Army Black Hawk helicopter and crashed into the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night, officials said.
The athletes had been participating in a U.S. Figure Skating development camp in Wichita, Kansas, targeting promising young skaters, Skating Club of Boston CEO Doug Zeghibe said.
"To the best of our knowledge, 14 skaters returning home ... were lost in the plane crash," Zeghibe told reporters in Norwood, Massachusetts. "It’s a major loss for our skating community."
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Six victims were affiliated with the Skating Club of Boston, two coaches, two skaters and two mothers, Zeghibe said.
The club identified the skaters as teenagers Spencer Lane and Jinna Han and their moms, Christine Lane and Jin Han.
Officials said the two coaches were former Russian world champions Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov.
The tightly knit Boston skating community was rocked.
Stoneham native Nancy Kerrigan, who won a bronze medal at the 1992 Olympics and silver in 1994, broke down in tears thinking of the victims.
“Much like everyone here has been saying, I’m not sure how to process it,” she told reporters in Norwood. “I’m sorry, which is why I’m here.”
It was not immediately clear how many U.S. skaters were on American Eagle Flight 5342, which was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members, according to the airline’s parent company, American Airlines.
The Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championship, the final qualifier for the U.S. World and Junior Championship teams, concluded Sunday in Wichita and was immediately followed by the National Development Camp.
Russian world pairs figure skating champions Shishkova and Naumov, who were married, were also among the passengers, the Russian state news agencies Tass and Ria Novosti first reported and Zeghibe later confirmed.
Shishkova, 52, and Naumov, 55, won the pairs event at the 1994 World Championship and had been living in the United States since 1998 after they retired from competitive skating, according to Tass. They were working as coaches for skaters who included members of the Russian national team.
Wednesday night's crash evoked memories of the Feb. 15, 1961, crash that killed 18 members of the U.S. world figure skating team.
Sixteen coaches and relatives of those skaters were killed when Sabena Flight 548, traveling from New York City to Brussels, crashed at Zaventem Airport.
The party was on its way to the 1961 World Figure Skating Championships in Prague.
Skating legend Tenley Albright, who won gold in 1956, said Wednesday's crash brought back terrible memories of how close she came to being on the 1961 flight.
“Yes, there were really 22 of my friends on that plane in 1961 on their way to the world championships,” Albright said Thursday. “I’m sure I would have gone there to cheer them on, but I was in my last year of medical school and couldn’t go. And I remember years later, people looking at me very strangely. They were talking about and they thought, ‘Weren’t you on that plane?’ And I wish the ones that were on that plane weren’t. And I don’t know how to handle this.”
Zeghibe said the U.S. figure skating community is still feeling the impact six decades later.
"Almost half of everybody onboard that plane [in 1961] were from this club. It had long, long-reaching implications for the skating club and for the sport in this country, because when you lose coaches like this, you lose the future of the sport, as well," Zeghibe said.
"It's been a long time in redeveloping it. I personally feel that this club, the Skating Club of Boston, has just now, almost 60 years later, been coming out of the shadow of that 1961 crash. So this is particularly devastating."
