Haunting final photos aboard the doomed American Airlines flight to Washington DC showed a pair of Olympic-hopeful ice-skating sisters posing for pictures snapped by their proud parents.
Everly Livingston, 14, and her younger sister Alydia, 11, were beaming as they headed back to the capital after an ice-skating development camp in Kansas, alongside their parents, Donna and Peter.
In new images revealed days after the American Airlines jet collided with a US military Blackhawk helicopter as it landed at Reagan International Airport on Wednesday night.
The family-of-four were among 67 victims who died in the tragedy, which saw no survivors.
Donna Livingston reportedly sent the final images of her daughters to fellow US figure-skating team parent Jin Ah Longerbeam, who said the Livinstons were like family to her.
‘They were my little babies,’ she tearfully said of Everly and Alydia to ABC News, describing their parents as ‘really vivacious people.’
‘They supported their girls’ dreams,’ she said. ‘We did everything we can to try to make our kids dreams come true, and they did it every single moment and every single day.
Everly Livingston, 14, and her younger sister Alydia, 11, were seen in haunting final images aboard the doomed American Airlines flight to Washington, DC, smiling for their parents
The girls’ parents Donna and Peter Livingston were described as ‘really vivacious people’ by their grieving friends
The family-of-four were among 67 victims who died in the tragic American Airlines crash over Washington DC on Wednesday night, which saw no survivors
Longerbeam said she and her family had known the Livingstons since the girls were ‘little rugrats’, and that they called her son Wolfe Jin a brother.
‘Everly and Alydia were two of the brightest people at our rink,’ Wolfe said. ‘The community looked up to them.’
‘It’s sad to see them have to go out like this because I know that their futures were so promising,’ he added, saying they were known as promising ice-skating stars with dreams of representing the US at the highest levels.
Jin Ah added that the family didn’t often travel altogether for the girls’ ice skating trips but did on their fateful final journey back from Kansas.
Wolfe heartbreakingly revealed that he was at home in Virginia when he heard news of the crash, and drove to the crash site in the Potomac River with his mom in hopes that his friends could have been saved.
He said he brought warm jackets for the girls because he thought they would be cold if they were rescued alive.
‘He kept saying, “They’re gonna be cold… (we have to make) sure they’re warm”,’ Jin Ah said.
Everly and Alydia were known as promising ice-skaters with hopes of representing the US at the Olympics, as a friend described them as ‘two of the brightest people at our rink’
The family were on their way back from a Kansas ice-skating development camp to their home in Virginia when the tragedy unfolded
Pictured: Parts of the wreckage seen sitting in the Potomac River after Flight 5342 collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter on Wednesday night, killing 67 people
It comes as scrutiny has now fallen on how the shocking plane crash unfolded over one of the busiest airspaces in America, with a number of officials describing it as ‘preventable.’
Among the errors included that an air traffic controller was reportedly allowed to leave their post early just before American Airlines Flight 5342 collided in midair with a military helicopter.
After the staffer left, one air traffic controller was left to handle both helicopter traffic and manage planes – which should have been a divided duty – according to The New York Times.
Those tasks are usually handled between two people from 10am until 9:30 pm, according to the report. After then, the duties are typically combined and left to one person as the airport sees less traffic later in the night.
A supervisor reportedly decided to combine those duties before the scheduled cutoff time however, and allowed one air traffic controller to leave work early.
It has also emerged that the Army helicopter, which was carrying three soldiers, involved in the collision might have also deviated from its approved flight path.
The outlet again spoke with insiders that said the Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk helicopter was not on its approved route and flying higher than it should have been.
Reagan National has been understaffed for many years, with just 19 fully certified controllers as of September 2023 – well below the target of 30 – according to the most recent Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan submitted to Congress.
The two aircraft had collided in a huge fireball that was visible on dashcams of cars driving on highways near the airport before it plunged into the river
NTSB investigators are seen here working on the black box of American Airlines flight 5342
On Thursday morning, officials confirmed all 67 on both the plane and helicopter had perished, with their rescue mission then becoming a recovery operation.
Investigators made a break through later that night, after they had pulled 40 bodies to shore, when they found two black boxes from the American Airlines flight.
A flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder were pulled from the river by salvage teams.
This will be of monumental assistance to authorities as they investigate what exactly happened in the moments leading to disaster.
