Jinna Han was so caring that, when a fellow skater was struggling with injury at an event, Han was consoling her and Han’s coach eventually had to tell her it was “time to get selfish” and focus on her own performance, East Boothbay’s Elliot Schwartz recalled Saturday. 

“That is so typical of Jinna. She was always smiling, always appreciative, and very, very polite. Raised beautifully by her parents,” Jin and Jun Han, Schwartz said.

Schwartz, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee's performance innovation lead, serves on the board of Skating Club of Boston. The club has confirmed it lost Jinna, 13, and mother Jin Han of Mansfield, Massachusetts, skater Spencer Lane, 16, and mother Christine Lane of Barrington, Rhode Island and, from Norwood, Massachusetts, coaches and 1994 world pairs champions Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova in the mid-air collision that killed 67 people near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport late Jan. 29.

The club members were returning from a national development camp that followed the U.S. Championships in Wichita, Kansas.

Schwartz said of Jinna Han as a skater, “She was always one of the best at her level … For her age she was a unique combination of jumping prowess as well as artistic sensibility,” he said. “She really had talent in both areas,” and was hardworking — coming to the club six or seven days a week, usually with both parents.

Jin and Jun came from Korea and Jinna was Korean-American, Schwartz said.

“Just a lovely, lovely family, and my heart aches for Jun, losing his wife and his daughter.”

Schwartz, a national judge in singles, pairs, and synchronized skating, and a self-described "world's worst adult skater," has been an official at the U.S. Championships several times. To avoid any conflict with his job on the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, he was not involved in last month’s championships in Wichita. Schwartz explained, this year’s event was part of the selection process for the 2026 Olympics.

Jinna Han and Spencer Lane qualified for the Wichita camp via the strength of their performances at Sectionals, Schwartz said. Like others who made the camp, "They were identified as being on an arc toward being senior level competitors and potentially even international team members."

He said Lane had only been skating a few years, which made his abilities a surprise. "I was stunned. I was like, 'Who is this kid and where has he been?' Most of the kids, I've seen since they were really young, so I was surprised to see someone as prolific as Spencer."

Lane had a beautiful skating style, with incredible air awareness and position, Schwartz said. "He picked up on a lot of the jumps very quickly," doing triples within his first couple years skating. That is "almost unheard of," Schwartz said. "A rising talent (and) very intense, very studious."

The club is a family and is supporting those affected by the crash, including bringing grief counselors into the Norwood facility for the family members and anyone else, Schwartz said. He will reach out, too, to those affected but is waiting out of respect for their shock and the things they have to do now for their lost loved ones.

Schwartz said members of Washington, D.C. and Virginia area skating clubs were also on the flight, including some skaters he has judged.

"It's a huge emotional loss and a huge personal loss. Every person on that plane was an important part of our community and a part of U.S. figure skating. The kids who passed away, it's a huge loss of young talent, and the parents (who died), it's a horrible impact on families (with) remaining siblings and remaining parents. It's a horrible situation for them to be dealing with."

Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova's son Maxim, a Boston club member and international competitor who had just finished fourth in the senior men's U.S. Championship, lost both parents in the tragedy, Schwartz noted. "All of a sudden Max, a young 20-something, is left with no family ... One of the things I'm going to look into is, is he getting support for some of the mechanics for when you lose both parents ... managing the estate, planning for a funeral — all the things that I did with (the loss of) my parents when I was much older, and had a brother to do it with me ... Max is a 20-something doing it on his own."

A few years ago, Naumov and Shishkova created a program called Tomorrow's Champions, that distilled their skating knowledge, including training in the on and off the ice skills it takes to become a star figure skater, Schwartz said. "That (Tomorrow's Champions) program has been producing wonderful results," he said.

Schwartz added, last week's losses being felt by the Boston club and the U.S. figure skating community have been an eerie reminder of the 1961 plane crash that claimed the entire U.S. World Championship team, a lot of top coaches and Boston Club members. "That is an effect we are still feeling even now ... all the ripple effects, and now this happens."

Days after the Jan. 29 tragedy, Schwartz said he remained stunned and, he thought, was not yet feeling the full magnitude of the loss, in part because, having moved here full-time from Boston in March 2022, he lives a three-hour drive from the club. (He and husband Byron Cortez had a 2020 stay in Boothbay Harbor months into the pandemic, and bought their East Boothbay home in June 2021.) This week, he'll be at the club as an official for an international synchronized skating competition, for the first time since the tragedy. It will hit him a lot harder then, he expects. "And I hope to be able to be of support to those who are there," including club leaders and staff, "who've been dealing most head-on with the tragedy."

The 800-plus member club, with programs serving another 2,000 children and adults, still has many wonderful, dedicated skaters and coaches, Schwartz said. "So you will still see the name, Skating Club of Boston, at competitions. But the loss is still immense."