U.S. Figure Skating team members, former world champions, coaches and more are tragically among the passengers onboard the American Airlines plane that collided with the U.S. Army helicopter in Washington D.C.
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00:00Well of the 64 victims aboard the American Airlines flight that crashed last night in DC
00:0614 of the people on the plane were part of the figure skating community and very young
00:12Figure skaters. I think the youngest being 11 years old that we know of at this point
00:17They were on their way from Wichita
00:20Some of them going back home around Virginia some of them going to other places connecting through DC
00:26But they were and one of the places they were going was Boston
00:31there were
00:32six of the skaters that were part of a skating club in the Boston area and
00:38This is really obviously hit the skating community very hard. They were just they just finished the u.s
00:46Skating figure skating championships in Wichita and some of these younger skaters were there
00:52To see the older skaters to get some coaching and mentoring and
00:56They were all traveling home last night with their coaches with their parents
01:01Nancy Kerrigan who is
01:04Obviously a huge figure in ice skating, but also at that club in the Boston area
01:10She spoke out this morning about this loss not only for the skating community, but really for all of us
01:18As we deal with this this tragedy much like everyone here has been saying is
01:26Not sure how to process it
01:36Which is why I'm here and then when you find out, you know, you know, some of the people on the plane is
01:43Even a bigger blow hard to watch obviously what she's going through right now what the families are going through the friends
01:51We know that there's people that left a day earlier weren't on the same flights as their friends and family. That's not a day later
01:57So this is really hitting the ice skating. Yeah, I mean it's it's exactly that commits
02:02It's obviously it's a horrible story
02:04But then when you find out that these a lot of these people these ice skaters were kids. They were they were children
02:10It just makes it all all the much more worse. Also this
02:14Figure skating competition that was happening in Wichita. I mean, it's it's the Super Bowl for American skaters and to think that all of these these
02:21Kids, you know these these girls and boys were coming off of what was this really incredibly big and important moment in their lives
02:27And then to have this happen. I mean, it's just one of those things. It's just like it's not fair. It's it's
02:33What Nancy and others in the Boston area so
02:36Upset about that two of the people who perished last night were coaches
02:42Who were former pairs champions, I believe in 94 the same year that Nancy was in the Olympics
02:49and the Paris champions Vadim
02:53Namov and Eugenia Shishkova, they were married and they were coaches
03:00For the US team, but they worked out of the US team
03:04For the US team, but they work out of the Boston Club, so that is a huge loss for them and
03:10Their son is also a figure skater
03:14But was not on that flight. He had left, uh, Wichita before them, but imagine for him
03:20That he left early his parents parents and his friends
03:25Just a really huge loss for that skating community
03:29Abigail from Atlanta and absolutely this is like a flyer's worst nightmare, right?
03:35and let's talk about you know preparing for death and not
03:38Being able to and your loved ones and hopefully that you know
03:42All the passengers and crews bodies are going to be found because you know that would give the family and loved ones some closure
03:49i'm thinking about these kids who literally the day before were having the time of their life getting to see
03:54Some of the videos that they had posted they were their idols and they're they're people that they are looking up to
04:00And the next day they're not with us any longer. Yeah, uh, really really tragic