Teen figure skaters and their coaches, group of hunters and students among victims of air crash

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The victims of a crash between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter included teen figure skaters returning from a national meet with their mothers and coaches, an Ohio college student coming from her grandfather's funeral, two Chinese nationals and a group of hunters headed back from a guided trip in Kansas.

They were among 60 travelers and four crew members on board the commercial flight late Wednesday when it collided with the Black Hawk helicopter, which was carrying three soldiers. Officials say there were no survivors.

As the search for remains continued Thursday, communities grieved. Faith leaders held a vigil Thursday in the city council chambers.

“The only way we will get through this is together,” said the Rev. Pamela Hughes Mason of Wichita’s St. Paul AME Church.

American Airlines set up a hotline as well as centers in Washington and Wichita for people searching for information about family members who may have been aboard the downed flight. The hotline can be reached at 1-800 679 8215.

Here’s what we know about some of the people killed in Wednesday night’s crash:

Skaters Jinna Han and Spencer Lane were among those killed, according to Doug Zeghibe, CEO of the Skating Club of Boston. Their mothers, Jin Han and Christine Lane, as well as their coaches Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov also died.

Han and Lane, who was about 16, were returning from the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

“We watched Jinna just grow up here from just a tiny little tyke into this amazingly mature 13-year-old,” he said. “A great performer, a great competitor, and off the ice, a great kid.”

Spencer Lane, who was from Barrington, Rhode Island, took part in his first professional show in December with Elin Schran's company, Joy Skate Productions.

“He started to discover this connection with the audience and that joy that he was giving to other people through his gift," Schran said.

In a statement, the Lane family recalled Christine Lane for both her singular talents and her dedication to parenting.

"Christine exuded creativity throughout her life, using her formal graphic design training as a jumping-off point for seemingly endless creative pursuits across areas such as photography, quilting, knitting, and more. She brought even greater passion to her role as a mother to Spencer and his brother Milo,” the family said.

Their coaches, Shishkova and Naumov, won the pairs title at the 1994 world championships in Chiba, Japan. The Russia-born pair also competed twice in the Olympics.

Skating organizations in Philadelphia and the Washington area also said some of their young athletes had been aboard the plane.

Several athletes on the flight had attended a development camp held after the U.S. Figure Skating Championships ended Sunday in Wichita, Kansas.

Wichita Skating Center manager Sean O’Reilly said the championships brought a “groundswell of positivity,” drawing enthusiastic parents and young athletes from across the U.S. He was “gutted” to learn some of those skaters had been killed.

In Virginia's Loudoun County, a coach at a skating club was also identified as among the passengers, Virginia Rep. Suhas Subramanyam confirmed. The club, Ashburn Ice House, said that its “figure skating community has been directly affected,” but did not give further details.

Cedarville University in Ohio said one of the passengers on the plane was Grace Maxwell, a junior majoring in mechanical engineering.

Maxwell's father, Dean Maxwell, said she was returning to campus from her home in Wichita, Kansas, after attending her grandfather's funeral, The Wichita Eagle reported.

Grace Maxwell had been working on project this semester to create a hand-stabilizing device to help a boy in the area feed himself instead of rely on others, the university said in a statement.

“Grace was a quiet person with a keen interest in helping others through engineering,” said Tim Norman, who served as her secondary advisor.

Three other students from schools in Fairfax County, Virginia, and six parents from the district were also on board the plane, superintendent Michelle Reid said in a letter to families. She did not identify them, but she said the students were from different schools and that two of the parents were current or former district staffers.

Philippine Police Col. Pergentino Malabed Jr., who headed the supply management division of the national police, was among the dead. He had traveled to the U.S. to inspect equipment the Philippines was planning to purchase for its 232,000-member force, according to the Philippine police.

“His untimely passing is a profound loss to the Philippine National Police, where he served with honor, with integrity and dedication throughout his career,” police spokesperson Col. Randulf Tuaño said in a statement.

The Chinese Embassy in the U.S. said two Chinese nationals were also among the victims. It did not offer further details. The country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs offered its condolences for the crash victims and requested the U.S. to “promptly report any progress with the search and rescue, and find out the cause of the accident as soon as possible.”

Seven people returning from a guided hunting trip in Kansas were killed, according to a Facebook post by Fowl Plains, the guide service.

The Fowl Plains team said they had grown close to the hunters on board the flight over the years and considered them to be family members. The post doesn't identify the hunters by name, but it says they had spent the past week on a guided hunt, “laughing, talking about our families and sharing memories.”

“Heartbroken is an understatement,” the company said.

Those killed also included four steamfitters, all members of a United Association union local in suburban Maryland, union leaders said in a social media post Thursday.

“Our focus now is on providing support and care to the families of our Brothers as we continue to gather more information in the coming days,” said the post by UA General President Mark McManus and Chris Madello, the business manager of Local 602.

The victims also include three soldiers who were aboard the helicopter.

Officials said their remains will be at Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. That office coordinates the dignified transfer of fallen service members.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet announced. No identities of the crew have been released.

But the wife of one of the helicopter pilots said on Facebook that her husband, Andrew Eaves of Noxubee County Mississippi, was killed. In a phone call, Carrie Eaves confirmed the post was hers.

“We ask that you pray for our family and friends and for all the other families that are suffering today. We ask for peace while we grieve,” her post read.

The three soldiers were doing an annual night proficiency training flight, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, adding they were a “fairly experienced crew.” Officials were notifying relatives, he said.

Casey reported from Boston and Geller reported from New York. Associated Press journalists Summer Ballentine in Columbia, Missouri; Margery Beck in Omaha, Nebraska; Christine Fernando in Chicago; Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa; Nicholas Ingram in Wichita; Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama; Rio Yamat in Las Vegas; and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.

Six white roses and photographs of victims are displayed at The Skating Club of Boston, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Norwood, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Photographs of aircraft crash victims from The Skating Club of Boston rink are displayed rink side, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Norwood, Mass. From left is skater Jinna Han, skater Spencer Lane and coaches Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Doug Zeghibe, CEO and Executive Director of The Skating Club of Boston, pauses while announcing that six athletes, coaches and family are believed to have perished in the collision of a passenger aircraft and military helicopter in Washington, at the club's figure skating rink, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Norwood, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Boats work the scene in the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

A boat works the scene near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

FILE - Figure skating coach Vadim Naumov attends an interview in Simsbury, Conn., Aug. 2, 2002. (AP Photo/Bob Child, File)

FILE - Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov of Russia perform during free skating in the pairs event of the NHK Trophy International Figure Skating Competition at Nagoya central Japan, Dec. 9, 1995. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi, File)

FILE - World champions Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov of Russia execute a throw during the pairs short competition at the World Figure Skating competition in Edmonton, Alberta, March 19, 1996. (AP Photo/Dave Buston, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.

Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.

Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.

“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.

About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.

Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.

The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.

Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.

In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.

“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.

Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.

The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.

Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.

"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.

There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.

The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."

Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.

Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.

Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)