Ilia Malinin flew to D.C. on Monday after the national championships in Wichita and knew that young skaters were on the plane that crashed Wednesday.
Figure skaters and coaches returning from the U.S. national championships were aboard the American Airlines flight that collided with a Black Hawk helicopter Wednesday.
"Several members" of the U.S. figure skating community were on American Airlines Flight 5342, according to U.S. Figure Skating.
The U.S. Figure Skating Championships took place Jan. 21-26 in Wichita, Kansas. U.S. Figure Skating did not identify any of the members of its team that were on board. Doug Zeghib
Several members' of the U.S. Figure Skating community were onboard the American Airlines plane that collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk Helicopter over Washington, D.C., the governing body said in a statement.
In 1961, the plane carrying the U.S. team to the World Figure Skating Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia crashed, killing all passengers, including the team members, officials, and family members on board.
In 1961, the entire U.S. figure skating team died in a plane crash. Losing a generation of top-level athletes and their coaches hobbled the U.S. The DCA crash and brought back difficult memories.
U.S. figure skating legend Dick Button, who won back-to-back Olympic gold medals before becoming the iconic voice of the sport on American television, has died. He was 95.
Former Olympian Charlie White is among those trying to process the collision that killed more than a dozen members of the American figure-skating community, while trying to help the young skaters he coaches through the loss.
Authorities are combing the Potomac River for a second day in search of victims and more clues behind the deadliest U.S. air crash in over 20 years.
Jinna Han was just 13 years old and already turning heads at the Skating Club of Boston when she was killed in the D.C. plane crash.