Once again, figure skaters representing the past, present and future of the sport perished in a catastrophic plane crash – devastating a global community far too familiar with tragedy.
No one survived the midair collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and a Black Hawk military helicopter Wednesday night, authorities said.
“U.S. Figure Skating can confirm that several members of our skating community were sadly aboard American Airlines Flight 5342, which collided with a helicopter yesterday evening in Washington, D.C.,” read a statement from the organization, America’s governing body for figure skating.
“These athletes, coaches, and family members were returning home from the National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas. We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts.”
US Figure Skating has not confirmed the total number of skaters killed.
But a married pair of skating champions, two young skaters and their mothers were among those lost in the plane crash, the Skating Club of Boston said Thursday.
The multigenerational loss evoked painful memories of the 1961 plane crash that killed 73 people – including all 18 members of the US figure skating team headed to the world figure skating championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia. That disaster killed not just elite athletes but also their coaches, leaving seismic voids in US figure skating for generations to come.
World champions and parents of an elite skater perish in the crash
Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov broke the mold of serious, stoic Russian pairs teams and earned legions of fans worldwide. Their cheerful, tongue-in-cheek performance won the 1994 world championships.
Like many top Russian skaters in the 1990s, Shishkova and Naumov moved to the US and became coaches. The couple is survived by a son, 23-year-old Maxim Naumov, a US men’s figure skater who just earned fourth place at the national championships on Sunday.
Shishkova, Naumov and their son represented the Skating Club of Boston, which also lost several other members in the crash.
The tragedy will have a profound impact on the world figure skating championships in March, which will take place in Boston.
A longtime friend of the couple, renowned figure skating coach Rafael Arutyunyan, said Shishkova and Naumov “were very nice people, very good professionals and very good people.”
“I cannot believe they don’t exist in this world anymore,” he told CNN. “All of our community was respectful to them and liked them, so I feel they’ll stay with us forever.”
Arutyunyan’s skaters practiced in silence on Thursday as a tribute to the victims.
After the 1961 crash, it became common for teams to not travel together, said Arutyunyan, who’s coached Olympic medalists Michelle Kwan, Sasha Cohen and Nathan Chen.
He said he hopes athletes and coaches will travel less. “We are responsible for our kids,” Arutyunyan said.
2 young athletes were among ‘US figure skating’s future’
Skaters Jinna Han and Spencer Lane, along with their mothers Jin Han and Christine Lane, were also killed in the crash, the Skating Club of Boston said.
Jinna Han passed US Figure Skating’s highest-level skills test with honors in 2023. Spencer Lane won this season’s Eastern Sectional competition in the intermediate division.
“We watched Jinna just grow up here – from just a tiny little tyke into this amazingly mature 13-year-old who you wouldn’t think was 13,” said Doug Zeghibe, executive director of the Skating Club of Boston. He described the teen as “a great performer, a great competitor, and a great kid.”
Spencer, 16, posted one of the last photos from inside the plane before it collided with the military helicopter. Before the plane took off, he captured a photo of the right wing and captioned it “ICT -> DCA” – the airport codes for Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Jinna and Spencer were among the young skaters who attended the National Development Camp after the US championships last weekend to work with coaches and top skaters, CNN sports analyst Christine Brennan said.
“So this is US figure skating’s future,” Brennan said. “This would be the young teenagers who we would expect to see bubble to the surface, rise up and compete moving forward, even to the 2030 Winter Olympic Games.”
‘I don’t know how to handle this’
Famous members and alumni of the Boston skating club, including Nancy Kerrigan and Dr. Tenley Albright, wept as they visited the rink to support each other Thursday.
“We came here because we needed to be together,” said Albright, the first US woman to capture Olympic skating gold in 1956. “We’re family … and the skaters and the people who were on that plane, they’re our family, too.”
Albright lost more than a dozen friends in the 1961 plane crash. She, too, had considered flying to Czechoslovakia. “But I was in my last year of medical school and couldn’t go,” the skating icon said.
Six decades of processing that tragedy hasn’t prepared her to handle this week’s devastation. “I don’t know how to handle this,” the 89-year-old said.
Kerrigan, a two-time Olympic medalist, said she was stunned to learn she knew some of the people on the plane.
“The kids here really work hard. Their parents work hard to be here,” Kerrigan said, visibly emotional. “I feel for the athletes, the skaters and their families, but (also for) anyone that was on that plane – not just the skaters – because it’s such a tragic event.”
The horrors of 1961 strike again
Skaters and coaches still talk about the disaster that killed the entire 1961 US world team.
The talent included US ice dance champions Diane Carol Sherbloom and Larry Pierce; Olympic pairs skaters Maribel Yerxa Owen and Dudley Shaw Richards; and Owen’s mother, renowned coach Maribel Yerxa Vinson-Owen.
In honor of those victims, US Figure Skating established a memorial fund that has given “more than $20 million in financial support to thousands of athletes for skating-related and academic expenses,” according to the group’s website.
Now, “this sport is dealing with another tragedy of this magnitude involving air travel,” Brennan said.
And once again, the disaster cut short young athletes’ lives, “their hopes and their dreams to represent the United States in international competition and the Olympics.”
