Washington (AP) – Passengers on board American Airlines flight That collided with an army helicopter and crashed into the cold waters of the Potomac River included artistic skaters returning from the artistic skating championship of the United States and two of its Russian coaches.
Several passengers had ties with a Massachusetts skating club, WCVB reported. An indefinite number was “an athlete, father of an athlete or coach”, including youth skaters, affiliated with Boston’s skating club in Norwood, according to WCVB.
There were 60 passengers in total and four crew members on the American Airlines flight on Wednesday and three soldiers aboard the training flight at the Blackhawk helicopter. It was believed that there were no survivors.
“Now we are at the point where we are changing a rescue operation to a recovery operation,” said John Donnelly, firefighters in the capital of the nation, on Thursday morning. “We don’t believe there are survivors.”
The American artistic skating said in a statement that several skaters, coaches and their relatives were on the commercial flight after attending a development camp that followed the championships that completed Sunday in Wichita, Kansas.
“We are devastated by this indescribable tragedy and keep close to the families of the victims in our hearts,” said American figurative skating in a statement.
Two of those coaches were identified by the Kremlin as a Russian couple who was a world champions of couples 30 years ago.
Here are the passengers identified so far:
Shishkova and Vadim Naumov Evgenia
Shishkova and Naumov won the title of couples in the 1994 World Championship in Chiba, Japan. They competed twice in the Olympic Games.
The Boston skating club lists them as coaches. His son, Maxim Naumov, is a competitive figurative skater for the United States
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Shishkova and Naumov were aboard the plane.
“Unfortunately, we see that this sad information is confirming,” said Peskov. “There were other fellow citizens there. Bad news today from Washington. We regret and send condolences to the families and friends who lost those of our fellow citizens who died in the plane crash. “
The international skating union sent a statement saying that it was deeply shocked and disconsolate.
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