Figure skaters and others killed in the midair collision near Washington, D.C., on Wednesday will be honored when the world championships are staged in Boston in March.
International Skating Union president Jae Youl Kim held back tears Friday in making the announcement during the European championships in Tallinn, Estonia.
Skaters, coaches and family members on their way back from a national skating camp in Wichita, Kansas, were among those who died when a passenger jet approaching Ronald Reagan National Airport hit an Army helicopter. They included two teenage skaters, their mothers and two coaches who were part of the Skating Club of Boston.
In all, 14 members of the figure skating community were passengers on the airplane, according to Skating Club of Boston executive director Doug Zeghibe.
Among them were teenage skaters Jinna Han and Spencer Lane from the Boston club and youth figure skater Olivia Ter, who was 12.
Also killed were Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who won the pairs title at the 1994 world championships and competed twice in the Olympics. They were listed as coaches at the Boston club.
“At the moment we want to focus on mourning those who lost their lives and also provide support for the ones who lost their loved ones. We’ll take one step at a time,” said Kim, who became visibly emotional and paused to fight back tears as he told The Associated Press about the effect of the crash on the skating community. “We will discuss with our counterparts in Boston what should be done to honor those who left us in this tragic way. One way to honor them is to make sure that we provide the greatest event, to show the respect.”
The world championships will be held March 25-30 at TD Garden in Boston.
Police boats combed the banks of the Potomac River on Friday morning, moving slowly and scanning the shoreline as part of the investigation into the midair collision that killed 67 people in the United States’ deadliest aviation disaster in almost a quarter century.
More than 40 bodies have been pulled from the river as the massive recovery effort continued, two law enforcement officials told the AP on condition of anonymity. Sources told ABC News that additional equipment was needed to find additional victims and that the recovery is expected to last through the weekend.
Investigators have recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder of the American Airlines plane. Authorities were still looking for the helicopter’s black box recorder, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Fox News on Friday.
Officials are scrutinizing a range of factors in what National Transportation Safety Board chairwoman Jennifer Hommendy has called an “all-hands-on-deck event.” Air crash investigations normally take 12 to 18 months, and investigators told reporters Thursday they would not speculate on the cause.
Kim said skaters including European champion Adam Siao Him Fa of France had dedicated programs at the European championships to the crash victims.
“We are all saddened, but this is also just bringing the solidarity of the figure skating community together,” Kim said.
The figure skating world was also mourning Dick Button, the two-time Olympic gold medalist and broadcaster, who died Thursday at the age of 95.
“He left a great footstep in our lives, and not only in figure skating but in sports generally,” Kim said of Button. “He was much, much greater than a great skater. He was an innovator, pioneer.”
This is not the first time that the U.S. figure skating community has been rocked by an air tragedy. In February 1961, the 18-member U.S. figure skating team died in a plane crash en route to the world championships in Prague. Also killed were six U.S. coaches and four skating officials, along with some family members. The world championships were canceled that year out of respect for the American team killed in the crash.
