Barb Caffrey's Blog

The Washington Post reported today, January 31, 2025, that there may be as many as twenty young skaters, parents, and their coaches who were on American Eagle flight 5342. This page will be updated as more information comes in. These skaters and their parents, along with their coaches, deserve to be remembered.

While no official word has come yet, the Boston Figure Skating Club has released the names of several skaters and coaches who were on board a flight to Washington, DC, from Wichita, Kansas last night. That flight collided with a helicopter; no one knows yet how it happened, but it’s believed no one survived.

There were sixty-four crew and passengers on that flight. Among them were two young skaters, Jinna Han and Spencer Lane; their parents, Jin Han and Christine Lane; their coaches, Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov. Han was only fifteen years old, and Lane was just sixteen years old.

Edited to add: Two young figure skaters from the Washington Figure Skating Club also have passed away, those being Everly and Alydia Livingston. They were fourteen and eleven, respectively. Their parents Donna and Peter Livingston also perished.

Edited to add: Figure skater Cory Haynos, sixteen, and his parents, Stephanie and Roger Haynos, also were among the victims. He’d just landed a triple Axel jump for the first time at the developmental camp. That is a huge accomplishment for a young skater, and his potential, like the other skaters who passed away, was limitless.

Edited to add: Skaters Brielle Beyer and Edward Zhou, both of the Figure Skating Club of Northern Virginia, have also passed away. Beyer’s mother, Justyna, and Zhou’s parents, Kaiyan Mou and Joe Zhou, were also victims.

Also edited to add: Delaware Figure Skating Club lost coach Alexandr Kirsanov and young skaters Angela Yang and Sean Kay.

The United States Figure Skating Championships were held this year in Wichita. That’s why the young skaters and their coaches were there. After the championships, there’s usually a developmental camp for skaters with potential to climb higher. (Everyone in figure skating goes to these championships if they have the financial wherewithal to do so, unless they’re ill. It’s a very small community in a number of ways.)

I don’t know anything about Jinna Han or Spencer Lane, except that they were good skaters. They had excellent coaches (who, as noted above, have also died). They had boundless optimism, as future Olympic hopefuls must. They were hard-working, as figure skating is a demanding discipline. They wanted the best in life, the best in their sport, and the best from themselves, which is why they had stayed longer to attend that important developmental camp.

I do remember seeing their coaches, Shishkova and Naumov, skate back in 1994, when they won the world figure skating championship. They were brilliant, both technically and artistically. It’s not a surprise to me at all that they became coaches, nor is it a surprise to me that they were excellent coaches. (Not every figure skater becomes a coach, but those who do tend to be outstanding as they understand everything about it from the beginning of their careers until the end of their performing days.)

I mourn them all.

Edited to add: Coach and retired figure skater Inna Volyanskaya, a citizen of Russia, also perished in this crash.

The human cost is incalculable.

As one of the skaters said online at a social media site (I can’t remember which, as I heard this reported by local radio in Wisconsin rather than saw it), “Hug your loved ones. Hug them every day. Hug them hard.”

None of us knows the future. None of us knows what day will be our end, or how it will come. We can only make the best of the time we’re given.

One thing I do know about those figure skaters and their coaches is, they definitely did that. They lived in service to their art and to their sport. Their parents did everything they could to give their children a chance to excel in one of the most exciting, yet expensive, sports that has ever existed. The costumes, the choreography, the coaching, the ice time…sometimes it seems like the bills go on and on, all for a few brief moments in the sun.

Yet those brief moments in the sun — their short programs, their long programs, their experiences as they go to various events, etc. — are worth everything.

I wish this hadn’t happened. I don’t understand it.

But the unknown skater who said “Hug your loved ones” is right. That’s all we can do, as we continue to celebrate our own few, brief moments in the sun.