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US figure skating team member Spencer Lane’s haunting final post from inside doomed plane

A member of the US figure skating team shared a photo from inside a doomed American Airlines plane shortly before it crashed in Washington DC. 

Spencer Lane, 26, uploaded the photo around 7pm ET Wednesday, which appeared to show the jet taxiing on the runway at Wichita Airport in Kansas 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 members of the American figure skating team were also onboard the plane. They were returning home to the DC area after attending a National Development Camp for young skaters in Kansas. 

Russian figure skaters Yevgenia Skhiskhkova and Vadim Naumov are also believed to have been on the plane.

Their Team USA figure skater son Maxim 23, was at the Wichita camp although it is unclear if he was also on the fateful flight.   

Flight 5342, which had 64 people aboard, collided with a US Army Black Hawk helicopter as it made its final approach to Reagan Airport after 9pm ET.

Spencer Lane, 26, shared this photo from inside the doomed American Airlines plane as it took off from Wichita Airport in Kansas on Wednesday evening 

Spencer Lane is pictured on the podium during a previous tournament. He was on board the American Airlines plane that crashed into the Potomac River in Washington DC, killing at least 30

Spencer Lane is pictured on the podium during a previous tournament. He was on board the American Airlines plane that crashed into the Potomac River in Washington DC, killing at least 30

It split in two and plunged into the icy Potomac River.

So far, more than 30 bodies have been pulled from the frigid waters with the death toll expected to rise substantially.

The Black Hawk was on a training sortie, with experts questioning why it flew towards the American Airlines American Eagle jet.

The crash occurred in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the world, just over 3 miles south of the White House and the US Capitol. 

Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked a helicopter if it had the arriving plane in sight. The controller made another radio call to the helicopter moments later: ‘PAT 25 pass behind the CRJ.’ 

There was no reply. Seconds after that, the two aircraft collided.

The plane’s radio transponder stopped transmitting about 2,400 feet short of the runway, roughly over the middle of the Potomac.

Authorities are conducting a massive search-and-rescue operation. 

Inflatable boats were launched into the river and first responders set up light towers from the shore to illuminate the area. Helicopters from law enforcement agencies across the region also flew over the scene in a methodical search for bodies and survivors.

Fatal crashes of commercial aircraft in the U.S. have become a rarity. The last 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. One person on the ground also was killed.

The incident Wednesday recalled the crash of an Air Florida flight that plummeted into the Potomac on January 13, 1982, killing 78 people. That crash was attributed to bad weather.

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  • Source of information and images “dailymail

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