Published: January 30, 2025 9:00 am
Author: RT
Juvenile athletes and coaches were reportedly returning from a championship in Kansas on the doomed flight
Several prominent figure skaters and coaches were reportedly on board the passenger plane which crashed into the Potomac River in Washington, DC following a mid-air collision with a military helicopter. The list of victims reportedly includes Russian world champions Yevgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov.
Flight 5342 was carrying 60 passengers and four crewmembers from Wichita, Kansas to the American capital when it hit a US Army Black Hawk helicopter. There were reportedly no survivors.
The passengers included athletes, coaches and family members from the National Development Team, a training program for top juvenile figure skaters, The Wichita Eagle reported, citing US Figure Skating.
The city hosted the national championships for the sport last week, and some elite young athletes attended advanced classes there, the outlet explained.
READ MORE: US military helicopter collides with passenger jet in Washington DC (VIDEOS)
Some of the skaters have connections with Russia, according to media reports. Yevgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, a married couple who won the 1994 world championship pair event, were on board the flight, according to TASS. So, reportedly, was Inna Volyanskaya, who won medals at several Soviet and international skating events with her partner and husband Valery Spiridonov.
Some outlets claimed that most of the young athletes came from the Russian-American figure skating community.
There were fears that American skater Ilia Malinin, whose family came to the US from the USSR, was among the victims, but he confirmed that was not the case. Prominent athletes have expressed their shock in the wake of the tragedy, including Malinin, Luke Wang and Ethan Peal.
