“I will go, and I know that the President of the Assembly of the Republic and the Prime Minister will also be there, and we will try to attend all the funeral ceremonies today, which are many and in distant locations, and also the one that takes place tomorrow,” said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in Aveiro, on the sidelines of the closing of the National Youth Meeting.
The Head of State explained that he will “present to the families and communities (…) the condolences of the Portuguese people who understand the importance of the contribution of those military personnel, those security servants, who were on a mission, a mission that had not ended.”
“It’s a type of selflessness and sacrifice for all of us,” he emphasized.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said he had not yet spoken with the families of the five GNR military personnel who died on Friday, and that he left that moment for today: “At the time I went, I went very quickly to the command post because operations were underway and I obviously didn’t want to have any intervention there, the families had not yet arrived and they had very different situations, some still had a lot of hope and others no longer had hope.”
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 military personnel 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 military personnel 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.
