Ilia Malinin, the reigning world and national champion in men's figure skating, shared a message on social media after the crash on the Potomac.

Reigning World Champion figure skater Illia Malinin, who won the competition in Wichita that his teammates had left from before dying in the plane crash in DC, posted on Instagram on Thursday, Jan. 30 that he was 'heartbroken' by their deaths.

World champion Ilia Malinin cruised to his third consecutive U.S. Figure Skating Championship on Sunday, landing six of his seven planned quad jumps in the free skate.

Several members' of the U.S. Figure Skating community were onboard the American Airlines plane that collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk Helicopter over Washington, D.C., the governing body said in a statement.

Ilia Malinin doesn’t back down. When all of his jumping passes at last month’s Grand Prix Final were judged to contain under-rotation, he still had a sweatshirt made that reproduced the scoresheet, a memento of his having tried a free skate program with unprecedented difficulty.

Just days after figure skaters, family and coaches from across the United States came together in Wichita, a tragic plane crash has left the U.S. Figure Skating community reeling.

World champion Ilia Malinin leads by the largest margin in U.S. Figure Skating Championships history after the men's short program, seeking a third consecutive national title. Malinin, the 20-year-old nicknamed the "quad god" and the only skater to ever land all six four-revolution jumps,