The ties to Boston conjured up painful memories for Nathan Birch, a Baltimore skater who grew up training at that very same club. He remembered seeing memorials from the 1961 crash, which killed several Boston club members, on the walls and in an upstairs lounge.

The figure skating coaches from the Skating Club of Boston were on the plane traveling from Wichita to Washington when it collided with a helicopter.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed condolences on Jan. 30 to families of Russian citizens aboard the U.S. plane that crashed in Washington.