22-02-2025
Family, friends and community mourn skaters, mothers and coach killed in plane crash
Family, friends and members of Delaware's figure skating community paid their respects to five victims of a January plane crash at a funeral on Saturday morning in Newark.
Eleven-year-old Sean Kay; his mother, Julia Kay; 11-year-old Angela Yang; her mother, Zheheng 'Lily' Li; and the skaters' coach, Alexandr "Sasha" Kirsanov, were killed in the plane crash near Washington, D.C., on Jan. 29.
Sean Kay and Angela Kay were ice dancing partners who trained and performed together. Sean was described by U.S. Figure Skating as funny and outgoing, and Angela was described as a great friend to her teammates. Their mothers, Zheheng Li and Julia Kay, were traveling with them.
Kirsanov was a former coach of the UD Figure Skating Club, whose championships decorate the walls of the Fred Rust Ice Arena.
MORE ON THE KAY FAMILY: Days after mother, brother die in midair crash, Delaware skater's siblings return to rink
The funeral was held inside the Fred Rust Ice Arena on the campus of the University of Delaware in Newark. Five caskets rested on stands next to each other on the ice in front of a large projector, which played pictures and videos of the victims on and off of the ice. It was the first funeral held in the arena.
The public came and went as they wanted, sitting in the bleachers on one side of the arena. Families were in their own section of the arena. After the ceremony, the five people would be laid to rest at Gracelawn Memorial Park in Minquadale.
Gary Irving, who lives in Elkton, Maryland, has coached Olympians and other figure skaters for decades. He said he had known Kirsanov since he was 16 and traveled the world with him. He said he was devastated to lose someone who was first a student and then a friend.
"We traveled the world, partied hard, skated hard, trained hard," he said. "He's very talented, very passionate, and it was a great pleasure to teach him."
EARLIER SERVICE: Delaware victims lost in Washington, D.C.-area crash remembered at memorial
Julie Allford of Nottingham, Pennsylvania, skates recreationally in the arena and said she always saw Sean Kay and Angela Yang practicing on the ice. Allford and her children were also taught by Kirsanov and got to know him personally. She said that on the rare occasion that she would fall on the ice, he was always there to pick her back up.
"Next time I'm back on the ice, it's going to be really weird to not have Sasha there," she said.
The five plane crash victims were returning to the area from U.S. Figure Skating's National Development Camp in Wichita, Kansas.
The crash was a mid-air collision over the Potomac River between an American Airlines flight from Wichita to Ronald Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, and a military Black Hawk helicopter. All 64 people aboard the American Airlines flight were killed, and all three aboard the Black Hawk were also killed.
MORE ON THE CRASH VICTIMS: Students, Olympic skaters, families and more. A tribute to lives lost in the DC plane crash
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Family, friends and community mourn loss of skaters, mothers and coach
