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Long Island figure skater mourns friends lost in D.C. plane crash

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A Northport figure skater shared her grief after learning that several members of her skating community, including a young athlete she considered her “baby skating sister,” were among those killed in Wednesday’s American Airlines crash in Washington, D.C.

When Audrey Shin, 20, learned Thursday morning about the collision between Flight 5342 and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River, she tried calling her friends that she believed were on the plane.

Shin told News 12 Long Island she knew at least five people — including one special friend — onboard the flight, which was returning from the National Development Camp at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas, and was on approach to Reagan International Airport. Shin had just returned home from the same figure skating event.

“I just feel like it’s a dream right now, like a really bad nightmare,” Shin said during an interview with News 12 Long Island.

“I call her like my little skating sister,” she added, about her close friend on the doomed plane. “She was on the plane with her mom.”

‘Heartbroken’

Instagram/@audreyshin.skater

After the Skating Club of Boston released the names of its members who were passengers on the American Airlines plane, Shin, a Smithtown native, posted a tribute to her friend in an Instagram story. She wrote, “Jinna, my little baby skating sister… I don’t believe it. So heartbroken right now.”

Among the victims were 13-year-old Jinna Han and her mother Jin, Spencer Lane and his mother Christine, and coaching couple Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova.

U.S. Figure Skating confirmed that 14 members of the skating community were on the flight out of Wichita’s Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport.

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The Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet collided with the military helicopter about 400 feet above the Potomac River while approaching the airport. Officials believe all 64 people aboard both aircraft — 60 passengers and four crew members on the plane, and three soldiers in the helicopter — died in the crash.

Top photo: Instagram/@audreyshin.skater

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