A bride’s childhood dream of arriving at her wedding by helicopter ended in tragedy when it crashed just a mile from the ceremony’s venue.
Rosemere do Nascimento Silva, 32, had planned to surprise her fiancé Udirley Damasceno and 300 guests by swooping in to their reception in a rural area on the outskirts of Sao Paulo in Brazil.
But in an horrendous twist of fate, the aircraft crashed en route to the venue, killing the bride-to-be, her brother, the pilot and a photographer who was six-months-pregnant.
Mr Damasceno was left waiting at the altar, unaware of what his fiancée was planning to do, or of the tragic consequences.
Police and air crash investigators are now trying to establish what caused the crash. They are looking into reports that it might have hit a tree during bad visibility with rain, fog and cloud.
“All brides have a dream and hers was to arrive by helicopter to their wedding without anyone knowing,” Carlos Eduardo Batista, one of the organisers told Brazilian media Globo.
The accident was only discovered when he realised the helicopter did not arrive at a nearby football field.
He made a phone call which confirmed it had taken off as plannedThey were later told a plane had crashed nearby but at first thought it was an unconnected incident.
The distraught bridegroom was told the news at the altar by the pastor and was said to have gone into total shock. There were 300 guests at the wedding but only about six of them knew about the surprise.
The National Civil Aviation Agency has indicated that the aircraft permission to fly until February 1, 2017 with a capacity of three people without counting the pilot.
The helicopter, a Robinson 44, crashed about a mile from the wedding venue in a forest area near a main road. Eight fire engines rushed to the scene but nothing could be done to save the four occupants. The journey would have taken just 15 minutes.
– Mirror UK