26-03-2025
Not us. Not again. How figure skating's past is inspiring its recovery from the DC crash
Not us. Not again. How figure skating's past is inspiring its recovery from the DC crash Figure skating's world championships are underway this week in Boston, a city that carries visceral memories of the sport's improbable twin disasters.
BOSTON — Everyone remembers the frantic calls.
Janet Champion had just returned to her Colorado Springs home, decorated with memorabilia from a lifetime in figure skating as a child star and longtime coach, when the phone rang with news she could scarely believe.
Not us. Not again.
On Jan. 29, American Eagle Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kansas with 64 people aboard – including 28 members of the figure skating community – collided with a military helicopter as it approached the airport in Washington D.C. The plane exploded and plunged into the frigid Potomac River.
There were no survivors.
Champion had been at a skating camp with those who were lost: They were some of the nation's most promising young skaters. Future Olympic hopefuls. Dedicated parents. Top coaches.
The tragedy was compounded by its eerie parallel to 1961, when the entire U.S. Figure Skating Team − skaters, trainers and officials alike − died in a plane crash on the way to that year's world championships. It devastated the sport.
And it touched Champion, too. Just a teenager at the time, she lost her beloved coach.
In the nearly two months since the D.C. crash, America's tight-knit figure skating community has struggled to absorb another crushing blow. Families left with half-empty homes. Coaches haunted by the daily absence of talented skaters who hadn't yet reached their teens. And the daunting challenge of a recovery all too familiar to Champion's generation.
Now, as the sport works to get back on its feet in part by drawing on inspiration from the efforts that followed the 1961 disaster, Champion and her friend, former Olympian Christy Krall, and others in the skating community converged this week in Boston for the ISU World Figure Skating Championships, where organizers plan a tribute and hope the gathering helps heal still-raw wounds.
Boston, in particular, carries visceral memories of figure skating's improbable twin disasters. The vaunted Boston Skating Club here lost six members in the D.C. crash and 10 members six decades earlier.
And it's a place that brings those tragedies full circle for Champion, too.
It was here, in 1961, while performing on the ice, that Champion got word that the distant crash had killed coach Edi Scholdan. Her coach.
'I loved him, so that was really hard,' she said. 'And I know the kids now are going through that same thing.'
He had taught her that falling down was expected. It was part of the sport. Part of growing and learning.
So was getting back up.
1961 plane crash devastates US figure skating
Like many figure skaters, Champion started young – taking to ice when she was just 5.
Despite living in San Diego, she showed a talent for gliding and jumping in the area's ice rink. She loved the mix of athleticism and art and the skill required to make it appear fluid and effortless.
Because she'd once accepted a savings bond for an acrobatics contest, strict amateur rules at the time meant she couldn't become a competitive or Olympic skater. By age 9, she was offered a job as a professional skater with the Shipstads and Johnson Ice Follies – a traveling variety show on ice.
'I can remember in my 9-year-old mind thinking, 'Let's see. I'm going to travel all over. I'm going to skate in this amazing ice show, have fancy costumes and skate under the lights. And have so much fun. And why are they going to pay me for having so much fun?''
Live updates: Complete coverage of the ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Boston
Beginning in the 1950s, she traveled with her mother while attending Catholic schools in cities across the country as a featured skater. She and her fellow skaters rubbed elbows with the community of champions and coaches of the day.
She became friends with Krall, who competed in the 1964 Olympics, and fellow Follies skater Frank Carroll, who later became a famed coach whose skaters included super-star Michelle Kwan. Between tours, Champion trained with Edi Scholdan at the Broodmoor Skating Club in Colorado Springs, home to U.S. Figure Skating.
'I just loved him from the first minute,' Champion said.
He helped her perfect jumps and cut flawless figure eights. She and other young skaters, mastering moves from Salchows and lutzes, grew close to their coach and each other. It's part of what makes the figure-skating community so close: Family-like bonds form during long training hours that sometimes outstrip time with their own families.
On Valentine's Day in 1961, at age 16, Champion was in Boston for a series of shows at the former Boston Garden. Champion, Carroll and others were excited for friends and coaches who were among the U.S. team headed to the World Championships in Prague.
That included Maribel Vinson-Owen, an Olympic medalist who coached Carroll. Shohldan was going too with his 11-year-old son, Jimmy.
After one of the Ice Follies shows in Boston, the cast retired to their nearby hotel. Carroll, in an interview before his death, recalled being awoken one night at 3:30 a.m. by a ringing phone from a top skating official.
'They're dead,' she told him. 'They're all dead.'
The team's plane, Sabena Flight 548, nearing a landing in Brussels, circled the airport three times before plunging to the ground in a fiery explosion in Berg-Kampenhout, about 45 minutes outside of Brussels.
The crash killed 18 skaters and 16 officials, judges, coaches and family members. That included some who were based in Colorado Springs, where Krall, then a 13-year-old whose father headed the skating club, was awakened by a phone call to her dad.
She sat up in bed.
'I knew something terrible had happened,' she recalled.
In Boston, Champion said the crash was a 'horrible shock.'
TV cameras and reporters arrived. Champion recalled the cast clustering around a TV for news in between performances. The crash fueled global headlines and condolences from President John F. Kennedy.
'Heartbreak hung deeply over the Boston Garden last night,' the Boston Globe reported on Feb. 16, 1961. 'It was backstage, out of sight of the customers, where the tears fell and the shocked whispers spiraled outward from little huddles of cast members.'
The crash devastated American figure skating. It had lost top skaters and coaches. The country's competitive edge took years to recover.
Young skaters like Peggy Fleming, who also lost her coach, and Krall were propelled to the top of the U.S. women's ranks. Scott Allen, not yet 15 years old, became the youngest medalist in the 1964 Winter Games.
To rebuild the coaching ranks, U.S. Figure Skating looked overseas. Italian coach Carlo Fassi helped Fleming win gold in the 1968 Olympics.
Meanwhile, U.S. Figure Skating set up a Memorial Fund to provide financial assistance for talented new skaters, covering sports and academic costs – one of the unexpected legacies of the tragedy.
To date, it's given more than $20 million in financial support to thousands of athletes. That's critical in what is one of the most expensive sports. Costs include travel, coaching, ice time and related classes such as gymnastics and choreography. Skating blades alone can cost more than $1,000.
'I wouldn't skate in the Olympic Games in 1980 or 1984 without the memorial fund,' 1984 Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton said in a 2011 documentary commemorating the crash's 50th anniversary. 'My dream would not have come true. They made it possible. So all of us that came after represent their promise and their dream.'
Still, the crash cast a shadow for some in the skating community for decades to come. Carroll 'never got over it,' Champion said. Krall, too, said the trauma was lasting. 'They were our mentors,' she said recently, trailing off in tears. 'I still can't talk about it.'
For a time, Champion didn't want to fly.
After skating a couple of more years for Ice Follies, she spent three years with the Holiday on Ice show and two more at a Las Vegas hotel show before becoming a coach.
'I would have nightmares too sometimes and wake up and just don't believe that that all happened,' she said.
After wins in Wichita, tragedy strikes
On a mild week in late January, the Wichita Ice Center was bursting with young promise.
It was the start of the three-day Skating National Development Camp that followed the U.S. National Championships, representing the future hopes of the sport.
The competitive program is meant to help top young skaters further their goal of winning a spot on the national team. It also helped build community. There were workshops and lessons. A chance to showcase skills.
Many skaters balance homeschool with workouts or ballet or gymnastics. Not to mention all the ice time. So this was a chance to make friends. To bond.
Remembering the victims: Students, Olympic skaters, families and more. A tribute to lives lost in the DC plane crash
Champion was there to observe two young skaters from Colorado, where she had moved decades ago at Carlo Fassi's invitation and went on to work with some Olympic and champion figure skaters. She now specializes in teaching spins as part of a larger team of coaches.
Also on hand were Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, former Russian world champions who became top coaches. They had just watched their son, Maxim Naumov, place fourth in the national championships. Maxim flew home to Boston ahead of them.
Kalle Strid, a former Swedish skater who moved to the U.S. to coach around Washington D.C., was there with several of his skaters: Edward Zhou, 16, who he'd coached for years, Brielle Beyer, 12, who'd survived cancer as a baby and dreamed about the Olympics. And nationally ranked Cory Haynos, 16.
Cory recently landed a triple axel, a wildly difficult move, Strid said. But he was struggling to do it again. Strid spent time encouraging him and talked with his parents - not just about skating but about Cory's future.
As the camp wound down, Champion left for home, feeling good about her skaters' showing.
Strid left early, too. Right before boarding the doomed flight with her son, Cory's mother texted Strid. She had good news. Cory had landed his triple axle at the camp.
Back home, Strid had been editing music for Cory's season from the movie 'Gladiator.' He sent a clip of it to Cory during the 2 hour 40 minute flight from Wichita to Washington, D.C.
'I know you're on the flight, so you can listen when you land,' he recalled texting.
Not long after, Strid said, Brielle Beyer's father called him.
He was at an airport cell phone lot with his son waiting to pick his daughter and wife. News had broken that a plane from Wichita had gone down.
At the same time, worried calls and texts flew among the skating community.
Peter Zapalo, a figure skating performance physiologist who formerly served as Sports Science and Medicine Director of U.S. Figure Skating, picked up to find a friend relieved he had arrived home.
'Thank God you answered the phone.'
'Why? What the hell is going on?'
Many of the young athletes and some parents were on a group chat, said Zapalo. Kids and parents tried to locate people and sort through conflicting information.
Strid rushed to the airport.
'Gradually we all started realizing what had happened," he said.
Strid and others waited for hours before realizing the worst. There would be no rescue.
Not of Edward Zhou. Not of Brielle Beyer. Not of Cory Haynos. Not of Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who wouldn't make it home to their son Maxim. Not of any of the promising skaters, their families or coaches.
Quiet ice and funerals follow crash
About six weeks after the crash, Andrew Ter was driving his oldest daughter home in Northern Virginia from a piano lesson.
Little else about his life was normal.
Ter, 51, had lost his 12-year-old daughter, Olivia Ter, and his wife, Olesya Taylor.
Her mother had texted that they were landing just minutes before the collision, daugther Anne Valerie, 14, told a high school newspaper. 'I'll see you soon,' she replied.
It didn't go through.
Since then, Ter said, he's been on leave from his IT job. There has been a period of Russian Orthodox mourning traditions. A stream of friends and neighbors cooking and cleaning. Generous help from a GoFundMe and counseling offered by US Figure Skating. Legal issues and insurance. Caring for his high-school daughter.
But nothing can replace his wife, a social butterfly who had become a stay-at-home mother to support her children's passions, and his youngest daughter, who was bubbly, loved learning and was on track to become a top-level skater.
'All she wanted to do is ice skate,' he said.
His family's daily visits to the rink are suddenly gone. The new house they were building is nearly done. But now they don't need the space.
'We just don't know what to do now,' he said.
Ter said he's also angry. Angry about a collision in an area known for congestion. Why wasn't something done sooner?
For Strid, being back in the rink was hard. Amid makeshift memorials with squishmallows, candles and notes, he said it all felt like a wound that would never heal. Of the crash victims, 11 were skaters between the ages of 11 and 16.
'I still don't really sleep very well,' he said. 'I'm hoping that's gonna get better with time.'
The deaths had an outsized impact on the community in part because of how close and relatively small it is compared to other sports.
'I don't think I know a single skater or coach in this country who didn't know anybody on this flight,' Strid said recently. 'It's crazy for a thing like this to happen to a sporting community twice.'
Some have been attending multiple funerals. For Zapalo, that included one in the Washington D.C. area for Donna and Peter Livingston, who died alongside daughters Everly, 14, and Alydia, 11. Zapalo thought of the countless cups of coffee discussing training plans and career goals.
A video of the service includes a slideshow picturing the couple getting married, holding newborn babies in the hospital and daughters posing in ice skates. Alydia's coach recalled her big skating dreams.
During the service, a family friend addressed devastated young friends and skaters unsure how to move forward, telling them it was OK to restart their lives.
'You are allowed to laugh and you are allowed to live,' the speaker said. 'And when you graduate high school or win a medal, when you go to college or get married or have a baby, you may think of them and wish they were there with you, but they will be.'
Back in Colorado Springs, Janet Champion said her two kids at the camp got back to training.
'They were very upset. They had met some of those young boys that were 11 years old, too, who flew to DC that night,' she said. 'They're trying their best to carry on their skating life and do the best they can.'
In Boston, the rinks were quiet in the early days after the crash. 'Nobody wanted to skate, nobody wanted to coach,' said Doug Zeghibe, CEO of the Boston Skating Club, which has produced Olympic skaters such as Dick Button and Nancy Kerrigan. Instead, memorial flowers filled the club's headquarters.
Top U.S. figure skaters gather to honor flight crash victims with show
U.S. figure skating's biggest names are coming together for 'Legacy on Ice', a tribute show for the victims of the tragic flight crash on January 29th.
Sports Pulse
But that's changing. Maxim Naumov, 23, has found solace by getting back on the ice, Zeghibe said.
Earlier this month, a Legacy on Ice benefit paid tribute to the 67 people killed on both aircraft, raising money for victims and first responders. It included famed skaters such as Scott Hamilton and Peggy Fleming.
Maxim Naumov skated in honor of his parents.
At the end, he dropped to his knees on the ice and wept amid thunderous applause.
Recovery and push to boost
On Wednesday in Boston, Champion walked into the familiar tableau that has defined her life.
The chill air. The gleaming white ice. The crowds gathered to see athletes execute fluid turns, jumps and improbable spins to soaring music − all while projecting perfect composure, despite intense inner effort.
Champion and Krall were here to see friends, some Champion hadn't seen since Wichita, and cheer on skaters. She hugged Fleming as they took their seats.
But they were also here to pay tribute to the Washington D.C. crash victims, set to take place Wednesday evening.
Michael Parsons, a U.S. ice dancer who competed in Wichita ahead of the development camp, said the crash was weighing heavily on skaters' minds during this week's World Championships − dominating talk as he and others rode a bus to a practice session. Others said they hoped the gathering would help foster healing and catharsis.
'I know as a community, we've all been struggling," American skater Evan Bates said.
There are already signs of recovery. Young skaters said they are pushing to excel to honor their fallen friends. That harkened back to 1961, when many wanted to be part of rebuilding the sport and honoring those who were lost in the skies above Brussels, Champion and others said.
'For the kids we have already, and adults that we have already in the sport, they've doubled down on their passion,' Zeghibe said.
After the crash, U.S. Figure Skating set up a Family Support Fund to aid skating families directly impacted by the tragedy.
And in honor of the promising future talent lost in the recent crash, Zeghibe said the Boston Skating Club is considering creating a smaller, local financial aid program inspired by the 1961 Memorial Fund but targeting younger youth who are earlier in their development.
Krall said she's certain that, despite consuming so much young talent, the sport will find renewed ways to thrive.
'The joy of skating – it'll override this horrible pain," she said.
Champion, who has since joined the coach she lost in the Professional Skaters Association's Coaches Hall of Fame, watched skaters on the Boston ice not far from the old arena site where she skated in 1961 − tragedy and recovery spanning generations.
This one would get back up, too.
