“He was born here and lived here with his family. He’s a son of our land,” some residents in Sande, a parish in the municipality of Lamego, Viseu district, told Lusa news agency.
Along the approximately 200 meters of street in the center of Sande, between the church and the turn to the cemetery, soldiers from the GNR’s Emergency Protection and Rescue Unit and local residents formed a corridor to honor the soldier as the coffin passed by.
The soldier from Sande was one of five occupants of the helicopter on firefighting duty that crashed into the Douro River on Friday, returning from Baião to Armamar, where it was based at the Aerial Resources Center.
In a ceremony scheduled for 6:00 PM, Prime Minister Luís Montenegro arrived at 5:10 PM, accompanied by other government members including the Minister of Internal Administration, Margarida Blasco, the Minister of the Presidency, António Leirão Amaro, and the Secretary of State for Forests, Rui Ladeira. Montenegro left after approximately 10 minutes.
The President of the Republic arrived at 5:45 PM with the Mayor of Lamego, Francisco Lopes, and attended the first half-hour of the mass.
As President of the Republic and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, he addressed some words inside the church to the GNR, “which serves the country in all circumstances,” and thanked the family and colleagues of the soldier, whom he praised as an “example of selflessness.”
The Commander-General of the GNR, Lieutenant Colonel Rui Ribeiro Veloso, who left Lamego at the end of the funeral mass, joined the family members of the Sande soldier and will also accompany the remaining funerals, which have state honors.
High-ranking state officials had already been present at the Santa Cruz church for the funeral of the other two soldiers from Lamego, in a religious ceremony presided over by the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon, Rui Valério, and concelebrated by the Bishop of Lamego, António Couto.
In Sande, the funeral mass was celebrated by Rui Valério, while in Moimenta da Beira, a neighboring municipality also in the Viseu district, it was presided over by the Bishop of Lamego, António Couto.
As in Lamego, applause was the way those present honored and thanked the soldiers who died in service.
A fourth funeral will take place today in the parish of Vila da Rua, in Moimenta da Beira. The fifth soldier, whose body was found on Saturday afternoon, will have funeral ceremonies on Monday in Castro Daire.
The forest firefighting helicopter crashed into the Douro River on Friday, near the town of Samodães, Lamego, carrying a pilot and a team of five soldiers from the Emergency Protection and Rescue Unit (UEPC) who were returning from a fire in the municipality of Baião.
The aircraft pilot was rescued alive with only minor injuries.
On Friday, the bodies of four GNR soldiers were located. The fifth was found on Saturday afternoon after intense searches in the area.
The causes of the accident are not yet known.
The Office for the Prevention and Investigation of Aircraft Accidents and Railway Accidents (GPIAAF), a Portuguese State body, has a team on the ground investigating the accident.
