‘It hit us all as a community’: Spokane figure skating club honors skaters, coaches, parents lost in D.C. plane crash
Even though it was 2,500 miles away, the plane crash that claimed the lives of several talented, young ice skaters, their parents and coaches last week over Washington, D.C., broke the hearts of the Spokane skating community.
The Lilac City Figure Skating Club held a moment of silence Saturday morning for those who lost their lives when an American Airlines passenger jet and a military helicopter collided in the air and crashed into the Potomac River. Of the 67 people who died, more than a dozen were ice skaters, parents and coaches returning from the National Development Camp in Wichita, Kansas, where the flight took off.
Cheyenne King, Lilac City coach, said the exclusive camp included up-and-coming skaters who could have become Olympic champions.
“The whole skating community is so tight knit, and everyone is connected someway or another through coaches, clubs, competitions,” King said. “There’s such camaraderie in skating that everyone is so uplifting with one another. Even thought it’s an individual, competitive sport, everyone is there for everybody, so when something like this hits, it hits all of us so deeply and so hard.”
The club hosted its annual skating month celebration Saturday at Eagles Ice Arena in north Spokane where people were able to skate for free. Before excited adults and children took to the ice, the club honored those who died in Wednesday night’s midair disaster with several seconds of silence.
King said she asked skaters to hit the ice with love and joy for those who will never be able to do it again.
“Every skater that passed away there loved skating,” she said. “They dedicated their whole lives to it, so I think it’s a really great chance to exude that kind of energy and skate for them rather than being upset and sad through it.”
Chris Anders, another Lilac City coach, said the skating community spans the world, but it’s small at the same time, he said. Skaters often travel for competitions and train with different coaches, allowing a lot of relationships to form.
“I was best friends with some of my competitors, which is odd, you know, but it was wonderful,” Anders said.
Anders, 39, was a competitive pairs skater who went to nationals twice and skated in “Disney on Ice” for seven years.
He said the crash will only bring the skating community closer together.
“We’re just grateful that everyone came out today and we, as figure skaters, are grateful for all the support we’ve gotten from loved ones, from friends, from people who don’t even know us,” Anders said.
Henry Dingman, a 17-year-old from McCall, Idaho, who is training under Anders’ tutelage, echoed Anders’ comments.
“It’s really tragic and it hit us all as a community, and I feel like now as figure skaters, we really need to come together more than ever now,” Dingman said. “So, it’s been a really tough week, but hopefully, this can all bring us a little bit closer than how we kind of were before.”
Dingman, who is working to become a professional skater after competing at the national level the past several years, lives in Spokane after finishing up high school classes early.
He performed a solo figure skating routine prior to the free skate session Saturday.
Dingman said the crash tugged at his heart because he was fortunate to meet two of the fallen skaters at a competition in 2023 in Boston. He said he got to know them a bit that week of competition by skating with them and talking with them off the ice.
Dingman said they were not only talented skaters but good people.
“They were really sweet people and they loved skating so much, and it’s really sad they were taken from us way too soon,” Dingman said.
Wednesday’s tragedy marked the second devastating plane crash to the skating community. The first one came in 1961 when 73 people, including all 18 members of the U.S. figure skating team headed to the world figure skating championships in Czechoslovakia, died after the plane crashed in Belgium, according to CNN.