Ice skater Maxim Naumov surrounded by family friends after losing both parents in DC plane collision
Ice skater Maxim Naumov is being surrounded by his family friends “24 hours a day” after he tragically lost both of his parents in the mid-air collision in Washington, D.C. last week.
Naumov, 23, has been spending time with his loved ones after the unimaginable tragedy, which claimed the lives of 67 people after an American Airlines plane collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter.
Naumov’s parents, 1994 World Champions Evgenia “Zhenya” Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, were aboard the doomed aircraft.
“I know a couple who is with him right now,” Ekaterina “Katia” Gordeeva, a former teammate and close friend of Naumov’s parents, told People.
“They weren’t even in Washington yet, but … that morning [of the plane crash], we all connected right away, all the people from Simsbury,” referring to the town in which Naumov lived with his parents.
The woman currently looking after the young skater is “like a godmother to him,” Gordeeva adds.
“She is with him right now there and her husband,” she added.
Shishkova and Naumov, who were figure-skating coaches at the time of their deaths, competed twice in the Olympics and won the World Championships in pairs in 1994.
The duo, who were married, were in Kansas for a national developmental camp which was in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, where Maxim competed and placed fourth.
The pair were coaches affiliated with the Skating Club of Boston.
According to the Daily Mail, a teammate said their son left Wichita on Monday last week and that the final words Shishkova and Naumov expressed to their son was that they were “proud” of him.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the military helicopter was on a training flight when it collided midair with the passenger jet and crashed into the Potomac River before 9 p.m. ET.
There were 60 passengers and four crew members on board American Eagle Flight 5342 en route from Wichita to Washington, D.C., American Airlines said.
The military helicopter was carrying three people, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said.
There were no survivors.
The American Airlines flight included 14 youth figure skaters — six of which were members of The Skating Club of Boston — who traveled to Kansas for the U.S. Figure Skating’s development camp.
“Our sport and this Club have suffered a horrible loss with this tragedy,” the Boston Skating Club said in a statement following the tragedy.
“Skating is a tight-knit community where parents and kids come together 6 to 7 days a week to train and work together. Everyone is like family. Of the skaters, coaches and parents on the plane, we believe six were from The Skating Club of Boston. We are devastated and completely at a loss for words.”
Other victims from the club have been identified as Spencer Lane, his mom Molly Lane, Jinna Han and her mom Jin Han, Everly and Alydia Livingston, and their parents, Peter and Donna Livingston.
