Teen Skater Isabella Aparicio’s Tearful Homage to Dad, Brother Left Crowd Standing
Figure skater Isabella Aparicio received an emotional standing ovation after her powerful performance in "Legacy on Ice" in honor of her father Luciano and brother Franco, who were both killed in January's D.C. plane crash.
Weeks after figure skater Isabella Aparicio lost her father and brother in a D.C. plane crash, the 13-year-old delivered a powerful performance in their honor that brought a captivated audience to its feet.
The emotional moment was part of “Legacy on Ice,” an event held in Washington D.C. Sunday to honor the 67 people who lost their lives on January 29 when a military helicopter collided mid-air with American Airlines Flight 5342, killing everyone on board both aircraft.
Isabella’s father Luciano Aparicio and brother Franco Aparicio were among the 28 members of the figure skating community killed in the crash. The plane had departed from Wichita, Kansas, which had just hosted the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships days earlier, as well as a national development camp that attracted skaters and coaches from around the country.
Aparicio took to the ice in remembrance of her father and brother Sunday, March 2 at the event organized to raise money for those impacted by the crash, skating to a recording of her father Luciano playing Pachelbel's Canon in D, according to The New York Times.
When she finished her routine, Isabella fell to her knees on the center of the ice and tearfully dropped her head into her hands as the audience erupted in applause and gave her a standing ovation.
She then quietly stood up and skated off the ice.
Ilia Malinin, Johnny Weir, Nancy Kerrigan and others pay tribute
The event brought together the entire figure skating community, from some of the sport’s most celebrated Olympians to its reigning world champs, all eager to pay tribute to the victims and support the families left behind.
The event raised an estimated $1.2 million for victims and first responders impacted by the tragedy, according to The Associated Press.
“Legacy on the Ice” was organized after 2024 Men’s World Champion Ilia Malinin set out to find a unique way to honor those who’d lost their lives.
“Being here in this region and knowing everyone on that flight in our community, it was a very traumatic experience for me and really just devastating for me to hear when all that happened,” he told the AP. “I really wanted to have something that everyone could remember as a family, as a whole community that we remember them and they will be forever remembered.”
Three-time U.S. Champion and popular Olympic commentator Johnny Weir also took the ice to deliver an emotional routine to the song “Memory.”
And he wasn’t alone. Other figure skating icons including Nathan Chen, Kristi Yamaguchi, Peggy Fleming, Nancy Kerrigan, Scott Hamilton, Brian Boitano and Paul Wylie also performed, according to NBC’s Washington D.C. affiliate WRC-TV.
“I think this is a really important time for us all to be together as a community,” Chen, a 2022 Olympic gold medalist, told TODAY’s Stephanie Gosk.
Much like Aparicio, 23-year-old skater Maxim Naumov, who lost both his parents, provided a heartrending performance that left the crowd in tears. Evgenia “Zhenya” Shishkova and Vadim Naumov had competed for Russia in the 1990s before transitioning into coaching, becoming fixtures at the Skating Club of Boston.
Flight 5342 was just minutes from its scheduled arrival at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport when a military helicopter traveling along the Potomac River on a training exercise slammed into it, killing all 64 people on board, along with the three people traveling in the helicopter.
While Hamilton called the tragic loss “so unfair,” he said “Legacy on Ice” was also a reminder of the skating community’s incredible resilience.
“It’s a big part of our identity, is we fall down, we get up. We get injured, we get up,” he said.
The moving event is available to stream now on Peacock, and NBC will air an encore performance on March 30.
