Boston-area skating club mourns members on downed D.C. flight

Six members of the Skating Club of Boston were aboard the American Airlines flight that crashed near D.C. Wednesday night, including two teen athletes, two parents and two coaches, bringing tragedy to a local club renowned for turning out champion skaters.

The club's chief executive, Doug Zeghibe, identified the skaters as 16-year-old Spencer Lane and 13-year-old Jinna Han. Their mothers are Christine Lane and Jin Han, and the coaches are Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov.

"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," Zeghibe said. "I think for all of us, we have lost family."

American Airlines flight 5342 collided with a Black Hawk helicopter in midair Wednesday and crashed into the frigid waters of the Potomac River.

Among the 60 passengers on board were figure skaters returning from the U.S. Figure Skating Championships last week in Wichita, Kansas. Four crew members were also on the American Airlines flight. Three soldiers were on the training flight in the Black Hawk helicopter. U.S. officials say there are no survivors. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

The Skating Club of Boston is among the best-known clubs in the world, producing numerous Olympic and world champions, including local two-time Olympic medalist Nancy Kerrigan. Other well-known names are Olympic champion Dick Button, Olympic gold medalist Tenley Albright and Olympic silver medalist Paul Wylie. The club is set to host the world championships in March.

Kerrigan made an appearance at the club Thursday to be with other members of the community who had gathered there.

"The kids here really work hard, their parents work hard to be here," she said during a tearful press conference. "I feel for the athletes, the skaters, their families, but anyone that was on that plane, not just the skaters, because it's just such a tragic event."

Flags were lowered to half staff at the facility, where the mood was somber in the wake of the tragedy.

The coaches aboard the flight, Shishkova and Naumov, won the pairs title at the 1994 world championships in Chiba, Japan. They competed twice in the Olympics.

Jinna was "just a wonderful kid ... great athlete, great competitor, loved by all."

Doug Zeghibe, CEO of Skating Club of Boston

Among their students is their 23-year-old son, Maxim, a former U.S. junior champion. He has finished fourth at senior nationals the past three years, narrowly missing the podium Sunday while his parents watched at INTRUST Bank Arena in Wichita; he flew home Monday with Zeghibe.

Zeghibe reflected on the talent of the teen skaters who were on the Wednesday flight.

He called Jinna "just a wonderful kid,” noting, “great athlete, great competitor, loved by all.”

“Spencer, in the best way possible, was a crazy kid. Highly talented, like incredibly talented,” Zeghibe said. “[He] has not been skating that long and just rocketing to the top of the sport.”

Spencer Lane is a sectionals champion who had become popular among the skating community on social media, where he has thousands of TikTok followers. On Wednesday, he had posted a video showing him doing a triple toe loop to wrap up the development camp.

“I am so happy to have qualified for national development camp earlier in November. It has been my goal almost ever since I became aware that it was a thing. I learned so much new information that I can apply to my everyday life, and met so many amazing people,” Lane had said in an Instagram post Wednesday.

He later posted a photo of him aboard the plane just before it departed from Wichita.

“ Spencer, in the best way possible, was a crazy kid. Highly talented, like incredibly talented. [He] has not been skating that long and just rocketing to the top of the sport.”

Doug Zeghibe, CEO of Skating Club of Boston

U.S. Figure Skating confirmed in a statement that several skaters, coaches and their family members were on the commercial flight after attending a development camp following the championships that wrapped up Sunday in Wichita.

“We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts,” U.S. Figure Skating said in a statement.

Olga Ganicheva said she was Han's coach for nearly four years. "Jinna is a very talented, beautiful skater," she said in an interview. "She has a nickname, Jinna Starina. Because she skated like a star. And she's such a performer."

In a statement on social media, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey called the news of the crash “devastating.”

“My heart goes out to the Skating Club of Boston, and the loved ones of the skaters, parents, and coaches lost in last night’s crash,” Healey wrote.

This is the second time a plane crash has rocked the figure skating community in recent memory.

On Feb. 15, 1961, a Boeing 707 traveling from New York to the world championships in Czechoslovakia crashed on approach in Brussels, Belgium, killing all 72 people aboard. That included all 18 members of the American team heading to worlds, along with 16 family members, coaches and skating officials that were on their way to support them in Prague.

Among those killed in that crash were former U.S. champion-turned coach Maribel Vinson-Owen and her daughters, 16-year-old Laurie Owen and 20-year-old Maribel Owen. Two weeks earlier, Laurie had won her first women's title and Maribel won her first pairs title at the national championships in Colorado Springs, Colorado. They also represented the Skating Club of Boston.

" I personally feel that this club, the Skating Club of Boston, has just now, almost 60 years later, been coming out of the shadow of that 1961 crash," said Zeghibe. "So this is particularly devastating."

With reporting from WBUR's Stevee Chapman, Jesús Marrero Suárez, Katie Cole, Deborah Becker, Cristela Guerra and The Associated Press.