Ashburn, Virginia. The only home in the cul de sac with a backyard skating rink was this one.
According to a neighbor, Peter Livingston would set up a rink to practice jumps and lutzes for his figure skating daughters, Alydia and Everly, by anchoring two-by-fours in the ground behind the house and filling it with water when the cold weather arrived.
However, the Ashburn Ice House was the girls’ true home ice. At the early morning practices, where her children skated with elite figure skaters like Inna Volyanskaya, their mother, Donna Livingston, was a regular sight.
They were known online as “The Ice Skating Sisters,” and according to friends and neighbors, their parents accompanied them when they traveled across the nation for camps and contests in cities like Boston, Seattle, and Austin, Texas.
The invitation for Alydia and Everly to attend a prestigious training camp after the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas, was no exception.
The four boarded American Eagle Flight 5342 to return home, and Wednesday night over the Potomac River near Washington, it crashed with a Black Hawk helicopter. The cause of the crash is currently being investigated by investigators.
Everly, 14, and Alydia, 11, perished on the fateful flight along with their parents and sixty other passengers. Three troops on the Army chopper were also killed in the crash.
Days later, 13-year-old Helen Li, who played with Alydia and Everly on the few times they weren’t practicing or competing, was still dealing with the grief on the Livingston’s cul de sac. She just referred to the younger sister as “Lydia.”
A tribute on the Facebook page The Skating Lesson claims that Everly was more reserved and quiet than Alydia.
However, it stated that Everly “came alive on the ice becoming a sectional champion at the intermediate and juvenile levels,” and that Alydia was a rising ice dancer and the youngest skater on the aircraft.
According to the social media post, Alydia had lately partnered with a new individual and was well-known for her lively attitude and strong will to get better on the rink regardless of criticism.
Through his mother, Liz Abercrombie, her new boyfriend, 15-year-old Matt Jacoby, issued a statement expressing his grief at the loss of his partner and friends on Flight 5342, stating that “words cannot express” how he feels.
He stated that Alydia’s “passion for skating and bubbly personality brightened the rink and she will be greatly missed.”
Abercrombie described the Livingstons as “a loving family who dedicated their lives to their girls and ice skating” during a brief phone conversation with NBC News.
According to The Skating Lesson homage, Donna and Peter Livingston were “among the most devoted parents” who were “trying to manage raising two skaters.” In recent years, they had alternated between Virginia, Michigan, and New Jersey, spending a lot of nights in motels. According to the post, Peter enjoyed filming his girls everywhere, and Donna will always be known for her upbeat demeanor.
According to Li’s father, Doug Fague, who was close to Peter, the Livingstons moved into the neighborhood roughly ten years ago.
“He had an enormous personality that was difficult to control,” Fague remarked. “He would give me a hard time because I would mow my yard too much.”
Therapy dogs were sent in to help skaters cope with the loss of their friends, and a memorial of flowers, balloons, candles, and cards at the girls’ home rink kept growing in the days following the tragedy.
Although Everly and Alydia had rather different personalities, Zere Scholz, whose 8-year-old daughter skates at the rink, stated that both were diligent workers. “A little firecracker” and “funny and full of ideas, energetic” were how she characterized Alydia, while Everly was “a little reserved,” but kind, joyful, and very committed to ice skating.
Everly shared on social media throughout the summer that she had surgery to repair a meniscus tear in her right knee. Although the injury might have prevented her from competing this season, she persevered and earned a seat on the National Development Team of U.S. Figure Skating, a training program for elite young skaters.
In September, Everly won the intermediate-level Autumn Classic in Texas. She participated in the Eastern Sectional Singles and U.S. Pairs Final in Norwood, Massachusetts, two months later.
According to Mauricio Lastres, whose 5-year-old daughter skates at Ashburn, she was a skater that many of the girls looked up to.
According to Lastres, I made a big deal out of the fact that my five-year-old daughter had just started a dancing lesson with Everly this month and that she was sitting next to someone who would eventually be a figure skater for the U.S. national team. She might have participated in the Olympics.
Corky Siemaszko reported from New York City, Minyvonne Burke from Pittsburgh, Pa., and Megan Lebowitz from Ashburn, Va.