Nancy Kerrigan, Tonya Harding and figure skaters who remember the the 1961 plane crash that killed the U.S. world championship team are mourning the death of those killed on American Eagle Flight 5342.
Kerrigan and other Bostonian skaters including 1956 Olympic champion Tenley Albright and 1962 national champion Paul George gathered at the Skating Club of Boston Wednesday for a tearful tribute to all of Wednesday night’s victims.
“I feel for the athletes, the skaters and their families, but anyone that was on that plane,” Kerrigan said. “We’ve been through tragedies before as Americans, as people, and we are strong.”
Two teenage skaters, their moms and a pair of world champion coaches from Boston were aboard the plane that collided with a Black Hawk military chopper outside Washington D.C. shortly before midnight. That crash claimed the lives of 14 members of the figure skating community altogether. In total, 60 passengers, four crew members and three soldiers in the chopper died in the mid-air collision.
Kerrigan didn’t have advice for the victims’ loved ones other than to take things day by day.
“It will take time,” she said.
Albright recalled losing 22 friends when a Boeing 707-329 departing from New York crashed in Belgium, killing all 72 people on board.
“I wish the ones that were on that plane weren’t,” she said. “And I don’t know how to handle this.”
George recalled the 1961 crash as “the day the music stopped.”
Skater Tonya Harding — Kerrigan’s teammate and rival in the 1994 Olympics — joined the social media platform X Wednesday morning wondering if anyone would remember her.
She used her new X account to send condolences to the victim’s of Wednesday night’s tragedy.
“The events that took place last night in Washington, DC are absolutely devastating,” Harding posted. “Sending my love and prayers to all the victims and their families.”
With News Wire Services
