The Skating Club of Boston CEO Doug Zeghibe pointed out the parallels in the 1961 plane crash and the collision on Wednesday, January 29

Figure skaters and coaches returning from the U.S. national championships were aboard the American Airlines flight that collided with a Black Hawk helicopter.

The accident was an eerie reminder of the 1961 plane crash that killed the U.S. figure skating delegation en route to the world championships in Prague.

The athletes were flying from Wichita, Kan. to Washington D.C. on American Eagle Flight 5342 when the crash occurred around 9 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration said.

Six people associated with Zeghibe’s club in Norwood, Massachusetts, were killed in the plane crash: skater Spencer Lane and his mother, Molly, skater Jinna Han and her mother, Jin, and coaches Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, a married couple who were world champion pairs figure skaters from Russia in the 1990s.

Two teenage skaters, their moms, and two former world champions who trained at a historic Boston club were among the 14 members of the skating community.

A pair of 16-year-old skaters, their mothers, and two Russian coaches were among the passengers on board an aeroplane that hit a helicopter above Washington DC on Wednesday evening, the group's skating club in Boston says.

Passengers aboard the American Airlines flight that collided with an Army helicopter and crashed into the Potomac River included teen figure skaters returning from the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and their Russian coaches.

For the next eight decades, the utilitarian barn on the banks of the Charles River was one of the centers of American figure skating, training Button and fellow Olympic champion Tenley Albright, Olympic medalists Nancy Kerrigan and Paul Wylie and scores of U.S. champions.

U.S. Figure Skating confirms "several members of our skating community" were on the flight: "We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy."

Two young figure skaters, two of their parents and two highly-regarded Russian figure skating coaches were among those killed after an American Airlines flight collided with an Army helicopter and crashed into the frigid waters of the Potomac River.

Fourteen members of the U.S. Figure Skating team, six of whom are affiliated with the Skating Club of Boston, were on the American Airlines plane that crashed into the Potomac River.