Famous Russian figure skaters killed in Washington plane crash

The ill-fated American Eagle flight was carrying skaters returning home from a training camp that houses athletes who are preparing to compete in the upcoming world championships as part of Team USA, writes NBC News.

Photo: Galina Barskaya | Dreamstime.com

Elite figure skaters were on board the American Eagle flight that collided midair with an Army Black Hawk helicopter and crashed into the Potomac River near Washington on Jan. 29, officials said.

They trained at the U.S. Figure Skating Federation's facility in Wichita, Kansas, said Skating Club of Boston CEO Doug Zegibe.

On the subject: American Airlines plane collides with helicopter, crashes into river with 60 passengers on board

"As far as we know, 14 skaters were killed in that plane crash on their way home," he told reporters in Norwood, Mass. "It's a huge loss for our sport of speed skating."

According to him, six victims were associated with the Skating Club of Boston - two coaches, two skaters and two mothers of athletes.

Their names are already known: Spencer Lane and Ginna Khan, and their mothers were named Christine Lane and Jeanne Khan. According to authorities, the two coaches are former Russian world champions Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov.

This was first reported by Russian state news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti, and then confirmed by Skating Club of Boston CEO Doug Zegibe. World pair skating champions Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were a married couple.

Shishkova, 52, and Naumov, 55, won the pairs competition at the 1994 World Championships and lived in the United States after finishing their sports careers (since 1998), TASS reports. In America, they became mentors and trained members of the Russian national team.

The Boston skating community was shocked by the tragedy.

Nancy Kerrigan, a Stoneham native who won bronze at the 1992 Olympics and silver in 1994, broke into tears as she remembered those lost.

"Like everyone here, I'm not in a position to process it," she told reporters in Norwood.

It is unclear how many American skaters were on the ill-fated American Eagle Flight 5342.

The Prevagen Figure Skating Championships, the final qualifying round for teams for the World and World Junior Figure Skating Championships, concluded in Wichita on January 26.

The January 29 plane crash was reminiscent of the February 15, 1961, tragedy that claimed the lives of 18 members of the U.S. figure skating team.

Sixteen coaches and relatives of figure skaters were killed when Sabena Flight 16, en route from New York to Brussels, crashed at Zaventem Airport.

The team was flying to Prague for the World Figure Skating Championships.

Legendary figure skater Tenley Albright, who won gold in 1956, said the January 29 crash reminded her that she, too, could have been on board the 1961 plane crash.

“Yes, there were 22 of my friends on that plane going to the World Cup,” Albright said Thursday, Jan. 30. “I’m sure I would have gone there to support them, but I was in my last year of medical school, so I couldn’t. I remember years later people looking at me and going, ‘Weren’t you on that plane?’ I wish the people on that plane weren’t there, too. I still don’t know how to deal with that.”

Zegibe stressed that the U.S. figure skating community still feels the effects of that tragedy more than sixty years later.

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"Almost half of everyone on board that boat were members of that club. It had long-term consequences for the club and for the sport in the country, because when you lose coaches like that, you lose the future of figure skating," Zeguibe said.

"It took a long time to recover. I think the Skating Club of Boston is only now, 60 years later, beginning to emerge from the shadow of the 1961 disaster. So this particular collapse is especially tragic."

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