Less than a day after Doug Lane’s eldest son, Spencer Lane, and his wife, Christine Lane, tragically died aboard the American Airlines flight that crashed in Washington DC, he has revealed his child’s ice-skating journey.
Everyone aboard the jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members from Wichita Airport in Kansas that collided with an Army helicopter is feared dead.
Spencer had only taken up ice skating about three years ago after watching Team USA’s Nathan Chen win gold at the Beijing Olympics. He progressed so quickly to be part of the national program alongside former world champions.
‘He was like a phenom and just loved it. And there wasn’t anyone pushing him. He was just somebody who loved it and had natural talent, but also just worked every day,’ Doug said of Spencer, with a younger brother, Milo, not on the plane as well.
‘He went up to Boston every single day, did high school online, and was just all in on figure skating.’
The family is based in Barrington, Rhode Island with Spencer and Milo both being adopted from South Korea as children.
Doug Lane’s eldest son, Spencer, died in the DC plane crash amid a remarkable skating journey
Doug’s wife, Christine Lane, also was on the flight that crashed moments from landing in DC
Spencer Lane shared a photo from inside the doomed plane shortly before it crashed.
Doug Zeghibe, the head of the Skating Club of Boston in Norwood, Massachusetts, announced the names of the six people associated with his club who were on board.
They are: Jinna Han, Jin Han, Spencer Lane, Christine Lane, Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova.
The 26-year-old uploaded the photo around 7pm ET Wednesday, which appeared to show the jet taxiing on the runway at Wichita Airport before it took off for its final flight.
He captioned it ICT -> DCA – the codes for Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Other elite members of the American figure skating team who were expected at the next winter Olympics were also onboard the plane, a bombardier CRJ700.
They were returning home to the DC area after attending a National Development Camp for young skaters in Wichita, Kansas.
