On the night of January 29, 2025, a passenger airplane collided with an army Black Hawk helicopter in the sky over the Potomac River. The plane, American Eagle Flight No. 5342, had been traveling from Wichita, Kansas, and had been moments away from landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. when the crash occurred. This was the first major U.S. commercial crash in almost 16 years. All 64 passengers and crew members on board lost their lives, along with the 3 soldiers completing a training exercise in the helicopter.
In the days and weeks following the tragedy, first responders have been conducting search and recovery efforts in the Potomac River, and have retrieved pieces of both vehicles to further analyze and determine the cause of the crash.
Among the 67 victims, 28 had been elite figure skaters, parents, and coaches returning from National Development Camp that followed the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita. These young skaters were the rising stars and Olympic hopefuls, and the great loss has shaken the figure skating community. World champion Russian figure skating duo and coaching team Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov had also been on the flight with their students, along with coach Alexandr Kirsanov, who had coached for the University of Delaware Figure Skating Club.
Tobby Ye, a young figure skater, had attended the prestigious training camp for the very first time, and had been friends with Spencer Lane and Cory Haynos, both of whom were victims of the crash. “I competed against Cory around two or three years ago,” he recalled, “And Spencer was the one who convinced me to start trying new jumps.”
16-year-old Spencer Lane was a member of the Skating Club of Boston, and his rapid improvements in the three years he had been skating clearly indicated his immense talent and dedication to the sport. Both him and his mother, Christine Lane, had lost their lives in the collision. Cory Haynos, also 16 years old, had died in the crash along with his parents, Stephanie and Roger Haynos. A member of the Skating Club of Northern Virginia, he had successfully executed his triple axel right before boarding the flight.
The loss has been heavy on the tight-knit figure skating community. Kevin Chen, a skating dad and father to Tobby Ye, described how all the skaters and coaches often saw each other at rinks, training camps, and competitions. He spoke about how the skating community has honored the victims and begun to slowly recover from the tragedy.
“One of the skaters [at our rink] wrote, ‘From today onwards, I am skating for them,’” Chen shared, “And that really moved me a lot. I just feel that it’s not so much about mourning for the loss for some time. It’s more thinking about: hey, we just need to try hard, just like those people that couldn’t try hard anymore. We need to carry their spirits on. It’s also such a small community where everyone knows everyone closely, so just by believing and helping each other, we can make that small community a lot stronger and resilient. That is the biggest takeaway for me, personally.”
U.S. Figure Skating, the governing body of the sport, has set up funds for the families of the deceased, and presented the ‘Legacy on Ice’ figure skating show this past Sunday to honor the skaters who died in the plane crash.
When asked how he would like his friends to be remembered, Ye responded, “I would probably try to keep their style of skating and their legacy alive, and to try to use that to improve myself.”
“And every time I move my eyes from the rink up to the sky,” Chen said, “I will be thinking about them.”
The tragedy of Flight 5342 was the first of many that would occur in the weeks to come. On February 6, a Bering Air Cessna 208B Grand Caravan EX aircraft crashed over the Norton Sound in Alaska, killing all 10 occupants. Eleven days later, a Delta Connection flight crashed upon landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport. There were 80 people on board, with 21 sustaining injuries. Most recently, on March 3, a United Airlines passenger plane experienced severe turbulence that resulted in injuries to five passengers. There have been many more incidents in addition to the ones mentioned, and these accidents have become more and more frequent.
Recent events have raised many concerns about flying procedures and aviation safety, with many people worried about the reliability of commercial airplanes and flights. The causes of these accidents are under investigation, and are still unknown as of today.