We’re learning more about the 67 people who perished when an American Airlines plane collided with an Army helicopter over Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C.
11-year-old ice skater Angela Yang died alongside her skating partner Sean Kay and coach Alexandr “Sasha” Kirsanov. A video of the up-and-coming stars routine at the 2025 Midwestern Sectional U.S. Ice Dance Final can be seen on YouTube.
According to Times Now, Yang honed her ice dancing skills at the University of Delaware Figure Skating Club. Sean Kay also danced with his brother at the 2023 Excel National Festival in Austin, Texas.
Kirsanov’s wife Natalya Gudin said she “lost everything” in the crash.
“I lost my husband, I lost my students, I lost my friends,” Gudin told ABC News. “I need my husband back. I need his body back.”
16-year-old Cory Haynos landed his first clean triple axel this past December.
“I’d been watching him work on it all week, just fighting to do it,” Mark Mitchell, one of U.S. Figure Skating’s coaches at the camp, said Thursday to the New York Times. “So when I saw him, I just said, ‘Oh, my gosh! Cory just landed the triple axel!’ And he was so happy, just so happy.”
Haynos is one of 14 people from the ice skating community who died in the crash. His parents Roger and Stephanie Haynos were also killed.
You can learn more about some of the other skaters killed in an AsAmNews artlcle published Thursday.
Also, among the dead in the crash was Asra Hussain. 11 Alive reports she grew up in Carmel, Indiana and graduated from Indiana University. The Pakistani American is survived by her husband Hamaad Raza who also graduated from Indiana University. Her father said she often traveled to Wichita for work.
I always pick her up from departures. I always help her load the bag into the car and give her a big hug and a kiss and then off we go. I had dinner waiting at home,” Hamaad Raza told NBC Nightly News. “My wife was such a giver. She gave and she gave and she gave, almost to the point of where she didn’t think about herself enough.”
Sara Lee Best was on the flight with her good friend Elizabeth Keys, reports the BBC. They both worked at the law firm Wilkinson Stekloff.
Best’s husband described her as kind and hard working. The two had planned to celebrate their tenth anniversary in Hawaii where she was born.
You can find the latest list of those killed in the crash here.
AsAmNews is published by the non-profit, Asian American Media Inc.
We’re now on BlueSky. You can now keep up with the latest AAPI news there and on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and X.
We are supported by generous donations from our readers and by such charitable foundations as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
You can make your tax-deductible donations here via credit card, debit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal and Venmo. Stock donations and donations via DAFs are also welcomed.
