The funeral masses for the National Republican Guard (GNR) Emergency Protection and Rescue Unit soldiers, who were natives of Lamego municipality, will be held on Sunday at Santa Cruz Church at 3:00 PM and at Sande Parish Church at 6:00 PM, followed by funeral processions, as announced by the Lamego municipality in a statement.
The municipality also announced that it has decided to suspend all activities of the Festivities in Honor of Our Lady of Remedies scheduled for that same day, “namely the 13th Douro Women’s March and Race, the Ethnographic Parade, and the commemorative show for the Day of Philharmonic Bands on Dr. Alfredo de Sousa Avenue.”
“The Municipality of Lamego expresses its deepest and most sincere condolences and profound sorrow for these deaths to all family members and friends,” the municipality adds, referring to the accident that occurred on Friday near the town of Samodães.
The forest firefighting helicopter crashed into the Douro River when the team – a pilot and five soldiers – was returning from a fire in the municipality of Baião.
Only the aircraft pilot was rescued alive, with minor injuries.
The soldiers who lost their lives in this accident were between 29 and 45 years old; three were from Lamego, one from Moimenta da Beira, and another from Castro Daire, in the Viseu district.
On the day of the accident, the bodies of four GNR soldiers were located, and this afternoon, the fifth body was found.
The causes of the accident remain unknown, with a team from the Office for the Prevention and Investigation of Aircraft Accidents and Railway Accidents (GPIAAF) on the ground investigating the case.
