Father Whose Family Perished in D.C. Plane Crash Built Backyard Ice Rink For Daughters (Exclusive)

Everly, Alydia, Donna and Peter Livingston, four of the passengers on American Airlines flight 5342, are being remembered by friends.

The Livingston family was headed to Washington, D.C., from Wichita, Kan., on the evening of Wednesday, Jan. 29, when an American Airlines regional passenger plane was struck midair by a U.S. Army Black Hawk Helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The tragic collision had no survivors and is the deadliest airplane incident in the U.S. since 2001.

The helicopter carried three soldiers, while the flight carried 60 passengers and four crew members, including the Livingston family. Everly, 14, and Alydia, 11, were sisters who competed with the Washington Figure Skating Club and were attending a Kansas competition. Their parents, Donna and Peter, joined them at the event. 

On Friday, Jan. 31, Peter’s friend Ted Boyke exclusively tells PEOPLE that his late friend “put his family first” and that Donna and his daughters were “everything to him.”

Boyke, who had known Peter since high school, says he and his friend were “lifelong buddies.” 

“Pete was a guy who was passionate about ice skating or about passing it on to his daughters. He was the type of guy who would come up with a wild plan and you’d say, ‘That sounds great, but it will never happen.’ And then he would go out and achieve it,” Boyke, 48, recalls of his friend. 

Boyke tells PEOPLE that when Everly was born, Peter “talked about building an ice rink in the backyard and getting her started ice skating.” 

“I thought, ‘That’s incredible, but that will never work. How can you have an ice rink in your backyard?’ ” Boyke recalls. “He not only did it … but then his daughters went on to be elite ice skaters.”

Boyke reveals that Peter, also an avid hockey player, named the rink the Livingston Ice Rink.

“He was known for every winter [for] putting down a tarp, boarding it off, pouring water into an ice rink that would freeze in the Virginia winters, and his daughters would practice there,” Boyke tells PEOPLE. “During COVID, they were able to practice that way when the ice rinks were closed temporarily.”

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Peter loved being a real estate agent because it allowed him flexible hours so that “he could be there to help his daughters train in ice skating [and] take them to meets and competitions,” Boyke says.

“He put them first. He was really passionate about that, and about their enjoyment of ice skating,” Boyke adds. “What I’m trying to take from this tragic loss is that if you have a wild dream or you’re passionate about something in life, just go for it.”

“That’s what Pete did, and that’s the example I want to follow,” he says.