‘Surreal, senseless’: Nashville Olympic figure skater remembers friends killed in DC plane crash

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - A recovery mission is underway near Regan Washington National Airport, after authorities say an American Eagle aircraft crashed into a military helicopter Wednesday night.

The collision caused both aircrafts to land in the Potomac River and all 67 passengers are presumed to be dead, according D.C. fire chief.

U.S. Figure Skating told NBC that several athletes, coaches and family members were on board of the American Airline jet.

“It’s unspeakable, it’s horrible,” retired American figure skater Scott Hamilton said. “There’s no words that can properly articulate just how tragic and horrible this crash was.”

Officials with U.S. Figure Skating say that they had just left a camp in Wichita, Kansas.

Hamilton, who now resides in the Nashville area, says he went to that camp as well.

“It’s almost like a family reunion going to a national championship, just to see people that you only see once a year,” he said. “It just seems so surreal, something that seems so senseless.”

Russia State media has identified two people, Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkov, with ties to their country, as being among those who died.

Hamilton says the couple was his friend and that this is a huge lost for the industry.

“With those coaches no longer with us, its gonna be difficult to see the impacts,” he said. " Now these lives are lost and these friends, I’ll never see them again, it just doesn’t seem real