Several figure skaters, along with their coaches and families, were traveling on an American Airlines plane that crashed into an Army helicopter near Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington D.C.

We skated together. We grew up in Saint Petersburg and we skated on the same ice,” said Marina Eltsova, of Leawood. “It’s surreal. ... I know there are videos of what happened. I just did not want to see it.

An American Airlines regional passenger jet was involved in a mid-air collision on Wednesday night with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan Washington National Airport, officials said.

Fatal crashes of commercial aircraft in the U.S. have become a rarity. The deadliest recent crash was in 2009 near Buffalo, New York. All 45 passengers and the four crew members were killed when the Bombardier DHC-8 propeller plane crashed into a house.