For many in the U.P. and northern Wisconsin, it has had a personal devastating impact.

Among the 60 passengers and four crew members lost was Axelandr “Sasha” Kirsanov, 46, an American-Azerbaijani-Russian ice dancer and figure skating coach who had competed for the United States, Azerbaijan, and Russia. Upon his retirement in 2004, he began coaching and choreographing.

Local resident and longtime skating judge Dorothy Jamison said Kirsanov’s death is a tragic loss to the area.

“Sasha was an amazing young man,” she said. “its a great loss. It’s a huge loss.”

Alexandr “Sasha” Kirsanov, poses with other fiqure skating coaches at an event in the Copper Country in August of 2017. Kirsanov was killed last week when the airliner he was in collided with an Army helicopter. Also pictured, from left, Surya Bonaly, Brittyni Carlson, Collin Brubaker, Kirsanov, Marcie Kierpiec and Jane Summersett. (Photo courtesy of Barbara Summersett)

For the past 10 summers, Kirsanov had coached with the Michigan Tech Skating camp, as well as in Marquette, Iron Mountain, and Eagle River, Wisconsin. and was also a dance partner. Jamison said it was a circuit in which he coached and served as a dance partner.

“His expertise was ice dance,” Jamison said, “but he did his work with the kids with skating skills and helped in every aspect of their skating.”

Kirsanov worked with skaters from ages of those who were just learning to ice dance, to those who were passing top-level testing.

“There is a whole scale of tests that you go through with U.S. figure skating,” Jamison said, “and he was coaching kids all the way up through the highest level ice dancing.”

As a national figure skating judge who is a former competitor, Jamison knew Kirsanov both professionally and personally.

“Most of the dancers that he partnered over, say, the past 10 years here,” she said, “I would would have been one of three of a panel of judges. Sasha was such an amazing young man. You want to celebrate his life. We all did our tears on the weekend, and we’ll continue to have some, but he was such an amazing asset for our skaters up here. The kids are successful because of Sasha, and what he brought to the sport.”

CBS News reported that Kirsanov came to the United States in the 1990s from Russia to pursue his dreams on the ice. He lived out his American dream of inspiring people in and out of the rink. He was in Wichita, Kansas for a national figure skating competition with two of his students. All of them and their families were on the plane that crashed near Reagan National Airport. For the skaters in the local community, said Jamison, it struck close to home.

“In skating there is such a limited number of members, and we all share the same background, even if we’re all over the country, Jamison said. “So, everybody knew somebody, and when half the plane was related to U.S. figure skating it’s devastating.”

When combining the L’Anse-Baraga Figure Skating Club with that of Calumet’s and the Copper Country Figure Skating Club, in Houghton, Jamison estimated that approximately 150 kids are skating students.

“Most of our kids up here were testing, and we have an enormously large amount of very high-level ice dancers up here,” Jamison said, “due in a very large part to Sasha and his partnering and coaching.”

Kirsanov was not the only high-level coach and ice dance partner working with the local kids, said Jamison. There are others.“They’re younger, they’re probably just off the competitive ranks themselves, and they’re finding their own, and they’re helping them, but at after 10 years, you have a certain relationship with a certain coach, and that continuity of skating style is just so beneficial to our skaters, so now, because they’ve spent so much time, that’s what’s devastating. We do have other coaches that we bring in, and in time they’ll form relationships, and some of them have, but Sasha was just such a charming young man. Absolutely charming.”

In addition to Jamison, Dr. Jane Summersett, a local dentist and former member of the US Figure Skating Team and for US Olympic alternate, taught local skating camps and test sessions with Kirsanov for several years.