Fox News: Olympic medalist Scott Hamilton recalls final meeting with champion Russian skaters days before plane crash

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Olympic medalist Scott Hamilton recalls final meeting with champion Russian skaters days before plane crash

Former American figure skater and Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton recalled his final meeting with Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov just days before they were killed in a plane crash near D.C.

                   
                       

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login held back tears on Friday as he remembered the victims from the figure skating community who died after an American Airlines flight traveling from development camp in Kansas to Washington, D.C., collided with an Army helicopter in midair late Wednesday night. 

The four-time men's singles world champion spoke fondly of the victims during an appearance You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login but called the reality of this week's tragedy "overwhelming." 

"For this to happen just days after those championships were over is just devastating, shocking – it just doesn't make any sense. . . .We're no stranger to tragedy but this was just beyond devastation."

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Officials have said that 14 skaters, coaches and family members were aboard American Airlines Flight 5342 when it collided with a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan Washington National Airport, near D.C., at around 9 p.m. local time. 

Many of the victims have been identified, including You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login the renowned ice skating coaches who won a world championship title together in 1994. 

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You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login when he spoke of the couple, who settled in America to become coaches following their successful career, which culminated in two Olympic appearances. He saw them just days before the crash while attending the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Kansas.

"I actually sat with them for a nice visit in Wichita," Hamilton recalled Friday."

"To think that they're gone is, um, I can't wrap my head around the last 36 hours. It's just been devastating, and the loss is just beyond description. My heart is shattered." 

Shishkova and Naumov married in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1995, and they moved to Connecticut. They had a son, Maxim, who competed in men's singles in the U.S. He was in Kansas but did not travel back with his parents. The Russian pair were coaches for the Skating Club of Boston.

Sixty passengers and four crew members on the American Airlines plane and three soldiers aboard a training flight on the helicopter are presumed dead. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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