The ties to Boston conjured up painful memories for Nathan Birch, a Baltimore skater who grew up training at that very same club. He remembered seeing memorials from the 1961 crash, which killed several Boston club members, on the walls and in an upstairs lounge.

An American Airlines plane and a U.S. Army helicopter collided near Reagan National Airport and crashed into the Potomac River, according to officials.

First thing is the communication between the air traffic control and the helicopter and the plane … There’s no direct communication between the civilian and the military helicopter and airplane. Instead,