ASHBURN, Va. — It was the only house in the cul de sac with a skating rink in the backyard.
When the freeze set in, Peter Livingston would anchor two-by-fours in the ground behind the house, fill the space with water and create a rink where his figure skating daughters, Alydia and Everly, could practice their jumps and lutzes, a neighbor said.
But the real home ice for the girls was the Ashburn Ice House. Their mother, Donna Livingston, was a fixture at the early morning practices where her daughters trained with world-class figure skaters like Inna Volyanskaya.
They were known online as “The Ice Skating Sisters,” and when they crisscrossed the country for competitions and camps in places like Boston, Seattle and Austin, Texas, their parents went with them, friends and neighbors said.
It was no different when Alydia and Everly were invited to participate in a prestigious training camp following the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas.
For their trip home, the four boarded American Eagle Flight 5342, which collided with a Black Hawk helicopter Wednesday night over the Potomac River in Washington. Investigators are still trying to determine what caused the crash.
Alydia, 11, and Everly, 14, died with their parents and 60 other people on the doomed flight. The accident also claimed the lives of three soldiers on the Army helicopter.
Days later, on the Livingston’s cul de sac, the grief was still fresh to 13-year-old Helen Li, who played with Alydia and Everly on the rare occasions they weren’t training or competing. To her, the younger sister was just “Lydia.”
Everly was shy and reserved compared to Alydia, according to a tribute posted on a Facebook page called The Skating Lesson.
Yet Everly “came alive on the ice — becoming a sectional champion at the intermediate and juvenile levels,” it said, adding that Alydia “was the youngest skater on the airplane and a rising ice dancer.”
Alydia had recently teamed up with a new partner and “was known for her vivacious personality and strong desire to improve on the ice — no matter the critique,” the social media post said.
Her new partner, 15-year-old Matt Jacoby, released a statement through his mother, Liz Abercrombie, saying “words cannot express” his sorrow at the loss of his partner and friends on Flight 5342.
He said Alydia’s “passion for skating and bubbly personality brightened the rink and she will be greatly missed.”
Abercrombie, in a brief telephone interview with NBC News, said the Livingstons were “a loving family who dedicated their lives to their girls and ice skating.”
Donna and Peter Livingston were described in The Skating Lesson tribute as “among the most devoted parents” who were “trying to manage raising two skaters.” They had spent many nights in hotels recently while splitting time between New Jersey, Michigan and Virginia. Peter “loved filming his girls anywhere and everywhere,” while Donna “will be remembered for her optimistic nature,” the post said.
Li’s father Doug Fague said the Livingstons moved into the neighborhood about 10 years ago, and he was close to Peter.
“He had a personality that was bigger than life, hard to contain,” Fague said. “He would give me a hard time because I would mow my yard too much.”
At the girls’ home rink, a memorial of flowers, balloons, candles and cards continued to expand days after the tragedy, and therapy dogs were brought in to help skaters deal with the deaths of their friends.
Zere Scholz, whose 8-year-old daughter skates at the rink, said that while Everly and Alydia had very different personalities, they were both hard working. She described Alydia as “a little firecracker” — “funny and full of ideas, energetic” — while Everly was “a little reserved,” but kind, happy and very dedicated to ice skating.
Over the summer, Everly posted online that she had surgery after injuring her right knee with a meniscus tear. The injury could have stopped her from competing this season, but she pushed through and landed a spot on U.S. Figure Skating’s National Development Team, a training program for top young skaters.
Everly won the Autumn Classic in Texas at the intermediate level in September. Two months later, she competed at the Eastern Sectional Singles and U.S. Pairs Final in Norwood, Massachusetts.
She was a skater many of the girls looked up to, said Mauricio Lastres, whose 5-year-old daughter skates at Ashburn.
“I made a huge thing about the fact that my daughter, being five, joined a dance class with Everly just this month, and she was next to somebody who was going to be, you know, a U.S. national team figure skater,” Lastres said. “She was going to be potentially in the Olympics.”
Megan Lebowitz reported from Ashburn, Va., Minyvonne Burke reported from Pittsburgh, Pa., Corky Siemaszko reported from New York City.
