Updated January 30, 2025 at 10:55 AM ET
Elite figure skaters — some of them youth athletes — returning home from a competition and training camp were among the passengers of the plane that crashed after colliding with a military helicopter near Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night.
More than a dozen of the 60 passengers on board were skaters, coaches or their family members, according to the Skating Club of Boston, an elite training organization that sent numerous skaters to the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.
American Airlines Flight 5342 departed from Wichita on Wednesday evening and was on its final approach to Reagan Washington National Airport around 9 p.m. local time when the fatal crash took place. Authorities believe there are no survivors.
"Skating is a very close and tight-knit community. These kids and their parents, they're here at our facility in Norwood six, sometimes seven days a week. It's a close, tight bond. And I think for all of us, we have lost family," said Doug Zeghibe, CEO of the Skating Club of Boston, who held a news conference early Thursday.
The 2025 Prevagen Figure Skating Championships — a final qualifier for the U.S. World and Junior Championship teams — ran from Jan. 20-26 in Wichita, Kan. It was immediately followed by the National Development Camp, which U.S. Figure Skating describes as a three-day educational program for top-performing youth athletes that aims to "accelerate their exposure to High Performance Programs and Team USA."
Some of those on Wednesday's flight were in attendance at the events, including two young skaters with the Boston club: Spencer Lane and Jinna Han, both teenagers who were traveling back to Boston with their mothers.
On his Instagram on Wednesday afternoon, Lane posted a photo taken from his seat on the airplane, looking out the window as it appeared to taxi toward takeoff.
Two of the coaches aboard the flight, Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, were Russian figure skaters. Both the Boston Skating Club and the Kremlin confirmed their deaths Thursday.
"The sad news is true," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who added that an unspecified number of other Russian citizens were aboard the flight. "It's bad news out of Washington."
Naumov and Shishkova were on both the Soviet and Russian figure skating teams and won the World Championships in pairs figure skating in 1994.
They moved to the U.S. in 1998 and stayed involved in the sport. Both were coaches at the Skating Club of Boston. And their 23-year-old son, Max, is a figure skater who competed at the championship event but flew home safely on Monday, Zeghibe said.
Other victims of the crash are believed to be from the D.C. area, said Aurore Michel, a figure skating coach who lives in Maryland. The Washington Figure Skating Club declined to confirm or deny the reports, and the Skating Club of Northern Virginia did not immediately respond to an inquiry
.As news reports spread Thursday morning, the area's figure skating community was in shock, Michel said. "We're such a small community, so we know everyone. Even if we may not know them personally, we've either seen them, we've connected somehow. And so, someone in our community is hurting," she added. "It affects all of us."
Wednesday's crash recalled another tragedy, in 1961, when a plane flying from New York to Brussels crashed on approach, killing 72 people on board — including the entire U.S. figure skating team, which was en route to a competition in Prague.
That crash had long-reaching implications for figure skating in the U.S., Zeghibe said.
"When you lose coaches like this, you lose the future of the sport as well," he said. "I think our current members, leaders, management team are — I don't know what the word is — is it wrecked? Is it devastated? Folks are just stunned by this."
Several American figure skaters have offered prayers and condolences in the wake of the tragedy, including defending world champion Ilia Malinin, who won his third-consecutive national title in Wichita on Sunday.
"Praying that everyone is ok," Malinin wrote on his Instagram story.
Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, said in a statement that some on board may have been Olympians.
"On behalf of the IOC, and personally, I extend our heartfelt sympathies to all those affected, which we understand may include Olympians, young athletes, and their support staff," he said. "Our thoughts are with all the victims, their families and loved ones during this incredibly difficult time."
Reporting contributed by NPR's Kristin Wright in Washington.
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