Celebrated figure skaters and coaches Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov have been confirmed among the passengers killed when a flight from Wichita, Kansas, to Washington D.C. collided with a U.S. Army helicopter late on Wednesday over the Potomac River. The CEO of the Skating Club of Boston, Doug Zeghibe, confirmed the tragic deaths of Shishkova and Naumov, a husband-and-wife duo who transitioned from their careers as Soviet Olympic pairs skaters to becoming esteemed coaches in the United States.

“This will have far-reaching impacts on our skating community,” Zeghibe told reporters on Thursday. “The coaches joined us in 2017 and were instrumental in building the competitive skating programme here at the Skating Club of Boston.”

Shishkova and Naumov’s son, Maxim Naumov, finished fourth last week at the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas. He was not aboard the ill-fated flight.

The couple were two-time Olympians for the Soviet Union and won a world championship gold medal together in Chiba, Japan, in 1994. According to his biography on the Skating Club of Boston’s website, Naumov, 55, had 22 years of experience coaching competitive singles and pairs skaters at all levels. Shishkova, 52, had dedicated 20 years to coaching in the same field.

Zeghibe struggled to hold back tears as he recalled that Shishkova “was always too nervous to watch [her son] skate,” according to The Daily Beast, while Naumov was by his side to celebrate a “great performance.”

Several other coaches were among the group of skaters and their families who perished in the crash, as confirmed by U.S. Figure Skating in a statement on Thursday.

"U.S. Figure Skating can confirm that several members of our skating community were sadly aboard American Airlines Flight 5342, which collided with a helicopter yesterday evening in Washington D.C.," read the statement, posted on the organisation’s social media accounts. "These athletes, coaches, and family members were returning home from the National Development Camp, held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas.

“We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families close in our hearts. We will continue to monitor the situation and will release further information as it becomes available.”

Natalya Gudin, the wife of Alexandr Kirsanov—a coach of two young ice skaters aboard the flight—expressed her heartbreak in an interview with ABC News on Thursday. “I have lost everything,” she said.

Kirsanov had travelled from the couple’s home in Delaware to Kansas for the development camp. Gudin recounted speaking to her husband as he boarded the flight on Wednesday.

“I lost my husband, I lost my students, I lost my friends,” she told ABC News. “I need my husband back. I need his body back.”

Russia’s Mash news outlet published a list of 13 skaters who may have been on board, many of whom were the children of Russian emigrants to the United States.

“There were other of our fellow citizens on board. It is a sad day in Washington. We express our condolences to their families and friends,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in St Petersburg, including Reuters.