First confirmed victims of Washington DC plane crash include figure skating champions
First confirmed victims of Washington DC plane crash include figure skating champions
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Skating Club of Boston says two skaters, their parents and coaches were on plane that collided with Army helicopter. Among the earliest confirmed victims of the American Airlines jet carrying 60 people that collided in midair with an Army Black Hawk helicopter carrying three soldiers were two figure skaters returning from the US figure skating championships, along with two of their coaches and two of their parents.
The Skating Club of Boston said in a statement on Thursday that Jinna Han and Spencer Lane, along with parents Jin Han and Christine Lane and coaches Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were aboard the plane on Wednesday night. The group was returning from the US figure skating national development camp, a program for “young competitive skaters of tomorrow”, following last week’s US championships in Wichita, Kansas.
“Our sport and this club have suffered a horrible loss with this tragedy,” said Doug Zeghibe, the CEO and director of the Skating Club of Boston. “Skating is a tight-knit community where parents and kids come together six or seven days a week to train and work together. Everyone is like family.
“We are devastated and completely at a loss for words.”. The most recent post on Lane’s Instagram profile was a photograph from the inside of a plane on a runway, with the caption “ICT -> DCA” – the codes for Wichita Dwight D Eisenhower National airport and Ronald Reagan Washington National airport in Washington DC.
The Russian-born ice skating coaches and former world champions Shishkova and Naumov, who were married, won the 1994 world championships in pairs figure skating. They have reportedly lived in the US since at least 1998, where they trained young skaters.
