The Reagan Airport collision of a passenger plane and a Black Hawk helicopter rocked the country in late January.
Especially affected were figure skaters like NDA’s own Grace Goh who knew some of the figure skaters that died in the crash. Those skaters were returning home from the National Development Camp in Wichita, Kansas.
“I feel so much more inspired to work extra hard on the ice and really use my time here and at the rink wisely because I never know when it is going to end,” said Goh.
Goh knew some of the skaters from the plane through watching them on social media and passing by a few of them in the rinks during practice. She also worked with Alexandr (Sasha) Kirsanov, a coach on the flight, during several skating camps.
Sasha was the first coach Goh ever worked with for pole harness, and during those lessons he showed her that she was capable of landing triple salchow and loop jumps.
“This inspired me to have the confidence to try them, and I also want to work extra hard so that I can make Sasha proud and land my double axel and triple jumps since he was the one who gave me the confidence to try it,” she explained.
Goh wasn’t super connected to any skaters on the plane, but she knew that many of them wanted to compete at the Olympics someday.
She thinks that Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were rooting for their son Maxim to earn a spot on the 2026 Olympic team since he is currently a senior-level skater who has competed internationally on behalf of Team USA.
Goh also thinks that Sean Kay, Jinna Han and Angela Yang were probably hoping to make it into the Olympics one day as well and were on track for that since they went undefeated in every competition this season.
Senior Grace Borys expressed similar thoughts, “Obviously, this was a tragic accident that no one was expecting, and I knew Sasha, one of the coaches who died, from a very young age. It impacted me in many ways, but the one that sticks out to me is how valuable every moment is. Making sure I say ‘thank you’ and being grateful for every minute I am here.”
