Russian skating couple, world champions in 1990s, were in crashed US airliner

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia : Russian-born ice skating coaches and former world champions Yevgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were aboard the American Airlines plane that crashed into the Potomac River in Washington on Wednesday night, the Kremlin and state media said.

Shishkova and Naumov, who were married to each other, won the world championships in pairs figure skating in 1994, and U.S. media said they had lived in the United States since at least 1998, where they trained young ice skaters.

Scores of people were feared dead after the American Airlines passenger jet carrying 64 people collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and plummeted into the frigid Potomac River near Reagan Washington National Airport.

U.S. Figure Skating, the governing body for the sport in the United States, said Shishkova and Naumov were reported to have been returning from a National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Kansas, and travelling with a group of young skaters.

Russia's Mash news outlet published a list of 13 skaters, many of them the children of Russian emigres to the United States, who it said may have been on the plane.

Speaking in St Petersburg, Ludmila Velikova, who trained Shishkova and Naumov when they were children and who was pivotal to their success, told Reuters that a group of 14 skaters and trainers had been on board the plane.

She said she was devastated by the loss of Shishkova and Naumov, but relieved that their son Maxim, who had competed in Kansas, had not been on the same plane.

'THEY WERE MY CHILDREN'

"They were my favourite sports people. They were part of my first attempt at the world championships and became champions in 1994. They were talented and beautiful