World champion Russian figure skaters reported to have been on board crashed US plane | Figure skating

US Figure Skating said on Thursday that several skaters were on an American Airlines regional passenger plane that crashed near Ronald Reagan national airport on Wednesday.

The plane, with 64 passengers and crew, was en route to Washington DC, from Wichita, Kansas, when it was involved in a midair collision with a US Army helicopter. The governing body for figure skating in the United States confirmed that athletes, coaches and family members were returning from the national development camp held in conjunction with the US championships in Kansas.

“We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts,” it said in a statement. “We will continue to monitor the situation and will release more information as it becomes available.” A source told Reuters that as many as 15 people on the flight may have been involved in figure skating. Officials have not said how many people died in the accident but have suggested that there may be no survivors.

Russian state media meanwhile reported that ice skating coaches and former world champions Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were among those on board the plane. Their son, Maxim, also a skater, may also have been on the plane, Russia’s Tass and RIA news agencies reported.

Shishkova and Naumov, who were married, won the world championships in pairs figure skating in 1994 and lived in the United States, where they trained young ice skaters. Maxim Naumov had been competing at the US figure skating championships in Wichita, according to the event’s website.

Inna Volyanskaya, a former skater who competed for the Soviet Union, was also reported to have been on board, Tass said. She was a coach at the Washington figure skating club, according to its website.