’Everyone knows everyone’: Minnesota figure skating community reacts to Washington plane crash

The figure skating community in Minnesota and across the country was reeling Thursday, in the wake of Wednesday night’s plane crash in Washington, D.C.

U.S. Figure Skating said several of its team members were aboard the American Airlines plane that collided with an Army helicopter — skaters, coaches and families returning from a training camp in Wichita, Kansas. That camp had followed the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

St. Paul Figure Skating Club coach and skating director Ben Miller Reisman told MPR News that as of Thursday morning, he had not heard of any Minnesotans among the victims of the crash.

Still, he said the tragedy was hitting everyone in the figure skating world.

“At that level of skating, everyone knows everyone,” he said. “I knew three coaches who are, you know, no longer with us. I know other coaches who lost many athletes. Skating is — you are one step away from everyone.”

“You just think of the stories that won’t get written and won’t be told, and it’s just so upsetting,” he said.

That sentiment shared by Minnesota figure skater Wren Warne-Jacobsen, a member of the Go4Gold Shakopee Skating Academy, as well as a student athlete at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

“I'm looking on social media and seeing Instagram stories and posts from kids who were on the flight, and just a few hours ago, they were talking about how amazing their experience at the camp was,” Warne-Jacobsen said. “Even there was a story of a boy who posted a picture out the plane window, about to take off on that flight. And it's just, it's really, really jarring.” 

The Skating Club of Boston reported Thursday that two of its skaters, their coaches and their mothers were among those who died in the crash. The American Airlines flight was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members. There were three people aboard the helicopter.