Among the confirmed victims of the American Airlines jet carrying 64 people that collided in mid-air with an army Black Hawk helicopter carrying three soldiers were young figure skaters returning from the US figure skating championships, along with their parents and coaches, and a North Carolina-based flight attendant.
The Skating Club of Boston said in a statement on Thursday that Jinna Han and Spencer Lane, along with their 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 programme 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 chief executive 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.
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“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.
Lane was reportedly 16 years old, and from Barrington, Rhode Island, according to Reuters.
The Russian-born ice-skating coaches and former world champions Shishkova and Naumov were married and had lived in the US since 1998. They won the 1994 world championships in pairs figure skating.
Inna Volyanskaya, a former skater who competed for the Soviet Union and was a coach at the Washington figure skating club, was also reported to have been on board.
Volyanskaya’s ex-husband, Ross Lansel, also a skate coach, told NBC that he was devastated by the news.
“It’s going to be so hard without her, it’s tough, because she meant a lot to these kids,” he said. “Inna was unique, one of the best skaters I’ve ever seen.”
In a statement, US Figure Skating, the sport’s domestic governing body, said: “We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts.”
The International Skating Union added that the global skating community was “deeply shocked by the tragic accident” and that it was “heartbroken to learn that figure skaters, along with their families, friends, and coaches, are understood to be among those on board”.
“Our thoughts are with everyone affected by this tragedy ... Figure skating is more than a sport – it’s a close-knit family – and we stand together.
Natalya Gudin, the wife of the ice-skating coach Alexandr Kirsanov, told ABC News that her husband and two young ice skaters he was coaching were on board the flight.
Gudin, who is also an ice-skating coach, told the outlet she decided to stay home in Delaware while her husband flew to Kansas for the camp and that she last spoke with him as he boarded the flight on Wednesday.
“I lost my husband, I lost my students, I lost my friends,” Gudin said. “I need my husband back. I need his body back.”
On social media, a woman said that her husband, Ian Epstein, a North Carolina-based flight attendant, was also on-board the plane.
Debi Epstein wrote in a post on Facebook that it is “with very heavy heart and extreme sadness that myself along with our children Hannah Epstein and Joanna Epstein and his sister Robbie Epstein Bloom her husband Steven Bloom and nieces Andi and Dani inform you that Ian Epstein was one of the flight attendants on American Airlines Flight 5342 that collided last night when they were landing in DC”.
Epstein’s own Facebook page notes that he worked at PSA Airlines, which is part of the American Airlines Group.
A father has also identified his son, 28-year-old Sam Lilley, as one of the two pilots aboard the American Airlines aircraft.
On Facebook, his father, Timothy Lilley, wrote how “proud” he was when Sam became a pilot. “Now it hurts so bad I can’t even cry myself to sleep,” he wrote.
American Airlines has not released the names of the flight crew members.
Hamaad Raza, also identified his wife, Asra Hussain (26), to Newsweek as one of the passengers who was aboard the flight. Raza was interviewed on Wednesday night at the airport while he was waiting for his wife.
“I’m just praying that someone is pulling her out of the river right now,” he told the reporters on Wednesday night.
The United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry confirmed on Thursday that four of members of the association’s steamfitters local 602 union in Maryland were among the victims of the flight. Their names have not yet been released.
The New York Times identified one of the steamfitters as 40-year-old Michael Stovall, a Maryland resident, who had been on a hunting trip with his friends in Kansas.
On Thursday afternoon, officials said that the bodies of all three soldiers who were in the helicopter had been recovered. Their identities have not been released. -Guardian
