Just before the deadly plane collision Wednesday night, 10-year-old ice skater Alexis Winch was playing a video game with her friend who was aboard the flight, her dad Jeff Winch said.
“Last night, she was sitting on the couch with her iPad, playing some video game live over the air with her friend on the plane just before the accident occurred,” he told CNN affiliate WJLA.
Winch told Alexis it was time for her to go to bed. Less than 30 minutes later, the catastrophic crash happened.
The family followed the news about the crash “until we realized that this flight was the flight from Wichita that her friends were on.” That’s when the family learned several of the young skater’s friends had died, Winch said.
“Then my wife just completely broke down, and she started calling friends and texting friends,” he said. “Some of them were at the airport, actually waiting for their their children and families to arrive.”
The 10-year-old was close friends with several of the victims who have skated together at Ashburn Ice House in Virginia for years, Winch said. The group of skaters were 10 to 14 years old, he said.
“My favorite memory of her was when we were sitting together and we were watching the Nationals, and we were watching skaters,” Alexis said of one of her friends. “And we were just like talking and having fun together.”
Another one of her friends “would always help me with some things, and she would always be there to talk to me and support me,” Alexis said.
Alexis returned to the rink Thursday for a lesson, trying to remain strong despite the losses, Winch said.
“I think she is telling herself that this is one way to deal with the emotions is just to keep pushing through,” Winch said. “She’s trying to hold it in right now, and I don’t know if she knows why she’s holding it in. On the way to school this morning, when we told her this, she got out of the car and she told my wife, ‘I don’t know how to feel. I don’t know what to do with this.’”
Other friends of the victims were at the rink “cuddled up and crying,” he said.
Some background: Several members of the figure skating community were aboard the jet, returning from a developmental camp in Wichita, US Figure Skating said. The Skating Club of Boston named six victims, including Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, the 1994 world champs in pairs.
This post has been updated with additional information.
