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Pittsburgh hall of fame ice skating coach mourns loss of athletes on D.C. plane crash

Pittsburgh hall of fame ice skating coach mourns loss of athletes on D.C. plane crash
Pittsburgh hall of fame ice skating coach mourns loss of athletes on D.C. plane crash 02:21

HARMAR, Pa. (KDKA) — "Heartbreaking" is the word that is being used to describe the midair collision between a military helicopter and an American Airlines flight in Washington, D.C., late Wednesday night that's being felt around the world, including in Pittsburgh.

Of the 64 people who were on the American Airlines flight, many of them were kids and members of the figure skating community on their way back from a skating championship in Kansas.

Bob Mock of Pittsburgh is in the Professional Skaters Association Coaches Hall of Fame and is a former board member of U.S. Figure Skating. He says the loss of these young skaters is tough to bear.

"The skaters that we lost here in Washington, D.C., were the youngest, brightest, most talented kids in the United States," Mock said.

Mock says that he doesn't know the names of the young athletes that were on Flight 5342, but he says that they were likely between the ages of 10 and 16 and were all traveling back from Wichita, Kansas, where both the annual U.S. Figure Skating Championships and a National Development Camp were being held.

Mock also said that this is not the first plane crash disaster for the U.S. skating community.

"In 1961 we lost the entire world team on a flight to Czechoslovakia for the world championships," said Mock. "The plane went down in Brussels, and we lost the entire world team and coaching team for the United States."

Mock says that after the 1961 crash, travel rules changed for Team USA, and athletes started to travel on separate flights.

He also said that U.S. Skating was set back years after that crash and that the sport is likely facing the same situation now.

"I think that if everybody could just say a prayer for the skating community right now, I think that would be very important," said Mock.

U.S. Figure Skating released a statement on Thursday, saying: "We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims' families closely in our hearts. We will continue to monitor the situation and will release more information as it becomes available."


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