Reigning World Champion figure skater Illia Malinin, who won the competition in Wichita that his teammates had left from before dying in the plane crash in DC, posted on Instagram on Thursday, Jan. 30 that he was 'heartbroken' by their deaths.

Once again, figure skaters representing the past, present and future of the sport perished in a catastrophic plane crash.

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.

Several members' of the U.S. Figure Skating community were onboard the American Airlines plane that collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk Helicopter over Washington, D.C., the governing body said in a statement.

John Donnelly, the chief of Washington's fire department, said at a news conference Thursday that 28 bodies have been found and efforts had shifted from "a search-and-rescue operation to a recovery operation.