Air India crash: King orders black armbands for Trooping the Colour
The King has asked members of the Royal family to wear black armbands during Trooping the Colour in honour of those killed in the Air India disaster.
A minute's silence will be held after the monarch has inspected the hundreds of guardsmen lined up on Horse Guards Parade during the spectacle on Saturday.
The King, the Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal and the Duke of Edinburgh, who will all take part in the parade in military uniform, will wear black armbands, as will coachmen and women from the Royal Mews and mounted officers.
A Buckingham Palace spokesman said the King had personally requested the changes 'as a mark of respect for the lives lost, the families in mourning and all the communities affected by this awful tragedy'.
The official birthday celebration is taking place two days after the crash claimed at least 260 lives.
It is thought to be the first time that black armbands have been worn during Trooping the Colour.
A minute's silence was incorporated into the 2017 ceremony, which took place just three days after the Grenfell Tower fire.
Other members of the Royal family, such as the Queen, the Princess of Wales and her three children, who will ride in carriages in civilian clothes, are not expected to wear armbands.
In a statement released on Thursday, the King said he was 'desperately shocked by the terrible events' of the Air India crash, and expressed his 'deepest possible sympathy' to those who 'await news of their loved ones'.
Union flags across all official royal residences were flown at half mast on Friday, as were those on Government buildings.
The King will once again take part in the annual spectacle in a carriage rather than on horseback, in a rare concession to his ongoing cancer treatment.
The monarch, one of the Royal family's most accomplished equestrians, last rode in the parade in 2023.
Princess Anne is expected to ride in the parade as gold stick, the colonel of the Blues and Royals.
She will be alongside Prince William, colonel of the Welsh Guards, and the Duke of Edinburgh, colonel of the Scots Guards and London Guards, who will also be mounted.
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Daily Mail
33 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Woman, 75, in £600k house furious after next-door neighbour demolishes home 'without permission' making her life a 'nightmare'
A 75-year-old owner of a £600,000 home says her recovery from cancer has become a 'nightmare' after the house attached to hers was demolished without planning permission - and works to build a new house have no end in sight. The row has kicked off in the peaceful village of Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire, where Doreen Beacom has lived for 25 years in her semi-detached house - which is now abutting an 'eyesore' building site she dreads seeing every morning. The property has stood unoccupied since it was bought by Jasbir Baryah in 2022, shortly before Mr Baryah sought planning permission for a ground floor extension. Doreen said she didn't take much notice of the application - until January 2023 when builders began to remove the roof of the house. Doreen watched in horror as the whole building that shares a wall with her property was demolished over the span of nine months - with retrospective planning permission for the works granted by Buckinghamshire Council in February last year. The grandmother-of-three said: 'It has been a bloody nightmare. 'I was dealing with cancer when this all started. I was just getting over that when these works started. 'They did quite a lot of digging and vibrations from the digging were just a nightmare. They had a grab loader and it was continuous beep-beep-beep from 7.30 to five in the afternoon. 'There was a mature garden next door - a huge ash tree, three apple trees. They razed it all. It was desolation. It was a sanctuary for wild creatures. I used to see frogs and toads in my garden - I haven't seen frog in my garden, you know.' She added: 'I started getting heart palpitations. I get up five o'clock in the morning, my brain switches on that bloomin building, and I just can't get it out of my head. I've had a heart monitor fitted.' Since the demolition works started, a crack has appeared along the rear outside wall of Doreen's property and a draft from the attic became a recurring problem after the adjacent roof was removed. Doreen said she was outraged when Buckinghamshire Council granted retrospective planning permission for the demolition works - and then granted further permission for proposed new building with an extension that will block light to Doreen's garden. Doreen said she has had to repeatedly warn the council that the new building is now extending beyond its approved plans. She said: 'What's happening, it's going to make a lot of difference to me. It's going to overpower my patio. 'I have no faith in the council. They should have realised that they were not following the plans that were approved. They should have checked. 'They should make the fines much higher - if it's a genuine mistake, there should be some give and take.' Since the demolition works started, a crack has appeared along the rear outside wall of Doreen's property and a draft from the attic became a recurring problem after the adjacent roof was removed But Doreen praised councillors from Stoke Poges Parish Council who have supported Doreen's engagement with the local authority. The parish council has also opposed the building works, with a planning meeting referring to the proposed new building as 'over dominant, obtrusive and out of keeping, as well as appearing as a cramped overdevelopment of the site'. The ongoing ordeal has left Doreen's friends and family deeply concerned for her well-being. She said: 'My daughter says, 'you have changed'. She said, 'can't you live with it', and I said 'no' - because it's wrong. It's unfair.' And Doreen worries about how the development next door will affect the value of her house. She said: 'Houses were going for £620,000 in the road before these building works. God knows what they would say now. 'Of course, I want to get on with my neighbours. I want to welcome new blood to the area.' Full planning permission was granted for the original extension of the property but the owner was not aware demolition of the building was not part of the permission, according to a representative from an architecture firm involved in the original plan to extend the property. David Hafield, of Hadfield Noblin, said: 'We were not aware that, following discussion with the builder and energy consultant, the applicant Mr Baryah, had made the decision to demolish the property with the view of rebuilding it to a better standard, particularly with respect to improved thermal insulation and energy conservation. 'With the intention of carrying out the works as approved Mr Baryah was unaware that the permission did not include for the demolition of the property. 'The retrospective application for the demolition of the property was prepared and submitted within 14 days of the receipt of the notice from the local planning authority, and permission was granted within the normal statutory period. 'The local planning authority were satisfied that the proposals did not constitute overdevelopment – hence the granting of the permissions.' It's not the first planning row involving retrospective permission in the usually quiet village. Civil war has erupted on a leafy street around the corner after a 'horrific' extension on a £1million property - which neighbours claim they knew nothing about until it was finished. Locals claim the new property is in breach of planning rules and looks like a 'Los AngelesMcMansion'. The parish council and locals have accused owner Jag Bahia of breaching planning permission granted for his extension works on the property. Mr Baryah has been approached for comment. Buckinghamshire Council's Cabinet Member for Planning, Peter Strachan said: 'Demolition at the property began without prior planning consent. Retrospective permission was granted in February 2024 after the council determined that the development complies with National and Local Planning Policies. 'We do not actively monitor construction; instead, it is the landowner's responsibility to ensure that the work is carried out to the approved plans . 'However, the Council is aware that the new building at this site is not built in accordance with the approved plans and we are addressing that through the normal planning enforcement process.'
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
QUENTIN LETTS: Let Dad know you love him (even if he does blow his nose loudly, obsesses about stacking the dishwasher in a certain way, and wears awful holiday shorts)
This Father's Day, if you have given or received a card, what does it depict? A foaming tankard? A sports car, wheel barrow, tie, rugby ball? Last week I spotted one that simply featured a packet of cigarettes. Another displayed the contents of a toolbox. Good old Dad, always tinkering in his shed with his spanner and saw, fag dangling from his lips and a can of light ale on the worktop. In this era of policed non-stereotypes, when gender-specific language can land you in the soup, it's amazing the greetings-cards trade still gets away with such things. How come it hasn't been gnawed to a submissive stump by the feminist Fawcett Society and its bristling battalions? As a 62-year-old Englishman of fogeyish tendencies I am cautious about the more mercantile aspects of Father's Day. Are they not a touch American? Are restaurants' Father's Day menus, like all that shop tat, not a little opportunistic? Part of me still suspects as much. Yet in a West that has neutered much of its masculine culture I also see certain merits. Father's Day is both a celebration of family and a reminder that Dads are different from Mums. You do not have to be opposed to gay marriage (I am not) to know that paternal affection is different from motherly love. Ideally, we need both. Father's Day, for all its commercial cheesiness, is a recognition of that. What is the role of fathers? Apart from the whiff of tobacco and Old Spice aftershave, what do fathers evoke? If that toolbox card is any guide, Dads are meant to be DIY aces, erecting shelves and hanging doors. But that has always been my wife's department. I am hopelessly impractical. My duties at home are the cooking and vacuuming. Stereotypes are not infallible. Are fathers meant to be disciplinarians? In my childhood that task usually fell to my dynamic mother. My father, a schoolmaster who taught Latin and Greek, was a more distant figure, likely to be absorbed in some volume of Virgil or Homer, or to be found beetling into Cirencester in his Sinclair C5 electric tricycle. He wore two wristwatches and was a stinging critic of decimalisation. He was not as eccentric as the 2nd Baron Redesdale, who used hounds to hunt his daughters, the Mitford sisters, but my father was certainly unusual. Although he had suffered terrible sadness, I never saw him cry. One role of fathers, back then, was to demonstrate emotional continence. Maybe that was not altogether a bad thing. Fathers can still provide emotional counterbalance. Where mothers will cluck over their chicks, spitting on hankies to wipe clean the little ones' mouths, even the most modern dads tend to be more phlegmatic. Every family needs one parent who is comparatively laid-back. When children graze a knee, mothers say 'poor diddums' while fathers will more likely grunt 'that'll teach you not to run around the place so much'. Mark Twain said: 'When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant that I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.' Fathers like to offer practical advice. Think of Shakespeare's Polonius in Hamlet, giving a long list of dos and don'ts to his son Laertes before the boy leaves Elsinore for university. Dads have been round the block. They have experienced hangovers and prangs and career setbacks. They may also, in the distant past, have been dumped by girls they fancied. When the same things happen to their children they ache for them, even if they don't always say so. You need not put everything into words. I never told my father, precisely to his face, that I loved him. He has been dead 15 years and I still think, often, of his floppy sun hats, his stubborn decency and his dry, precise voice when he read the lesson in church. I think of his crabbed bowling action in cricket, his weakness for pink ice cream, of the times his straw hat was sent flying by the wind, and the way, when we were tiny, he would blow raspberries on our tummies. I think of his sloped handwriting – to stumble across it on an old letter is to have him suddenly back in the room. And I think of the way he would lean forward at the steering wheel when overtaking other vehicles. He did that to make the car go faster. Like many of his generation he was gripped by economy. When driving to Cheltenham, on the long descent down Cleeve Hill, he would switch off the engine to save petrol. Such a man lodges in your heart, even if you do not tell him so. Our son and two daughters, now grown-up, were always encouraged to make a fuss of my wife on Mothering Sunday but we never went in much for Father's Day. When they were little the children might dart into my study early on the day and furtively slip me a home-made card before scampering away with blurted good wishes. I used to love that, even if I pretended to be unfazed. Will they mark this Father's Day? I suspect they might send me an email. It won't matter if they forget. They are fine children, and I don't need a card to tell me that. But if others wish to celebrate Father's Day, that is tremendous. Let the country cherish Dads for their quietness, their quirks and thirsts, their hobbies, terrible clothes, noisy nose-blowings, competitive lawn-mowing and their obsession with stacking the dishwasher in a certain way. Even for those terrible shorts they wear on holiday. I am pretty sure my dear Papa knew what I felt about him, for we were similar, just as my son is like me. The relay baton of life passes from generation to generation. My father used to take me to watch Gloucestershire at the Cheltenham cricket festival, where his own father had taken him in the 1930s. Decades later I took both him and my son to the same festival. He pocketed that with a quiet sigh of satisfaction. He knew, all right. On the morning of the day he died, aged 82, I slipped into the hospital not long after dawn. The nurses had lowered his bed to the floor to stop him falling out of it. I sat on the floor and, although his eyes and mouth were shut, I talked a little. Then I recited the Nunc Dimittis, the biblical canticle that starts 'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.' That, perhaps, was as close as I ever came to saying, 'I love you, Daddy.' As I was about to leave, his left hand moved across his chest and gave his right shoulder a scratch. Or was he giving me an old, Roman salute of valediction? I have never been quite sure. Today I will make the same gesture in silent tribute to the man I was lucky enough to call my father.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Air India crash survivor speaks out
The sole survivor of the British Air India disaster has revealed how he 'just walked out' of the burning plane as he admitted it is a 'miracle' that he has been left with only minor injuries. British national Viswash Kumar Ramesh, 40, said that he was in India with his brother for the best part of a year and was returning to London, where his family live, on the Gatwick-bound aircraft on Thursday. He was seated in 11A on the doomed flight from Ahmedabad, which is said to be one of the worst in India's aviation history, having claimed the lives of 279 people so far. Among the victims believed to be dead, which includes 53 British nationals, is the 40-year-old's brother Ajay Kumar, 35, who was sat on the other side of the aisle in seat 11J perished in the fireball explosion. Vishwash, who is being treated at the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad, just a short distance from where the plane crashed into buildings, has spoken of the moment he escaped from the burning plane. While sitting up in his seat, he told DD India, that he was 'feeling better than yesterday' and that the 'treatment is going good'. Still in shock, he admitted he 'can't explain' everything that he witnessed as the plane plummeted to the ground. He managed to escape after his side of the plane fell onto the ground of a floor building, forcing his way out of the plane past a broken door, before being assisted by locals and taken to hospital in an ambulance. 'The emergency door was broken, my seat is broken,' he said. Asked if he escaped the plane by jumping to the ground, he replied: 'I am not jumping. I just walked out innit.' 'It's a miracle,' he said when discussing his survival and injuries. His doctor added: 'He is having minor injuries only. He has some abrasions over his left forearm and swelling over left eyelid and over the eyes. 'Chest and abdomen is clear, no lung fractures present. The patient is vitally stable.' He added Vishwash had not complained of nausea, vomiting or any sort of fever. It is now anticipated to be released in the next 48 hours, his relatives have said. Jigar Chunilal, who has been at his bedside since he was filmed walking away from the crash site dazed and bloodied, said: 'Not only is it a miracle that he survived but it's also a miracle that he had no serious injuries. He's still very shocked that he's still alive and so are we. 'The doctors have told us that he can go home within the next two days and that is incredible, but we are not sure when he will be leaving for the UK. He suffered some minor burns but no fractures, broken bones or any serious internal injuries.' Mr Ramesh's parents, Manibhai and Bava, wife Hiral and two brothers, Sunnykumar and Nayankumar are expected to arrive in Ahmedabad over the weekend to visit him after leaving the UK on Friday night. Mr Chunilal added: 'We don't want to say too much because this is a very difficult time for us all. On one hand we are very happy that Viswashkumar survived but at the same time we are in mourning for Ajay.' He added that as per Hindu custom, the family are keen to carry out Ajay's funeral as quickly as possible and will not return to the UK until this is done. Earlier today, UK investigators with experience in aircraft operations, engineering and recorded data, arrived in the south Asian country in the wake of the tragedy. Terrifying CCTV footage showed the Boeing 787 Dreamliner careen to the ground shortly after take off in the densely populated Meghani area of the city at around 1.40pm local time (8.10am BST). Detailing the moments after the crash, Viswash described seeing several passengers and crew lose their lives as parts of the plane were scattered around the site. Still clutching his boarding pass at the hospital, he called his father in the aftermath of the tragedy. His brother Nyan told Sky News: 'He video called my dad as he crashed and said, 'Oh the plane's crashed. I don't know where my brother is. 'I don't see any other passengers. I don't know how I'm alive, how I exited the plane'.' Devastatingly, injured Viswash had been begging from his hospital bed: 'Find Ajay, you must find Ajay.' His cousin, Ajay Valgi, told the BBC , how Viswash has a wife and 'little boy' at home: adding: 'He only said that he's fine, nothing else. [We are] happy that he's OK, but we're still upset about the other brother.' Previously said of his younger cousin's, Ajay's death, Mr Valgi: 'I'm feeling absolutely upset. He's not just my cousin, he's also one of my best friends as well. 'They were sitting next to each other, but we don't know what happened to [Ajay Kumar]. We're not doing well. We're all upset.' On Thursday, relatives gathered at the family's terraced home in Leicester to comfort the brothers' mother who is said to be too grief-stricken to speak. 'It's a miracle at least one of them survived,' younger brother Nayan said. 'He said his plane had crashed and he couldn't find anyone, we couldn't believe it. There was blood running down his face. The tragedy's death toll has since increased to 279 dead, according to a senior Indian police source, making it one of the deadliest plane disasters of the 21st century. This is a further increase on an earlier figure of 265 victims, which includes those on the plane and ground. Air India said there were 242 people on board the London-bound flight, with only one survivor, with at least 38 people killed on the ground when the plane smashed into residential buildings. The official casualty number will not be finalised until the slow process of DNA identification is completed. The UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) announced on Friday night that four of its investigators had arrived in India and have expertise in aircraft operations, engineering and recorded data. The 'release of information on the investigation rests solely with the Indian authorities', it added. Air India said there were 169 Indian passengers, 53 British, seven Portuguese and a Canadian on board the flight, as well as 12 crew members. MailOnline previously revealed the British victims were Akeel Nanawaba, Hannaa Vorajee and their daughter Sarah, 4, Fiongal and Jamie Greenlaw-Meek, Javed Ali Syed, his wife and two children, Raxa Modha, her grandson Rudra and her daughter-in-law Yasha Kamdar, and Ajay Kumar Ramesh, the brother of the tragedy's only survivor. Relatives of Harrods ambassador Mariam Ali Syed, 35, her husband Javed - a manager at the Best Western Kensington Olympia Hotel - have spoken out since the tragedy. The couple's children Zayn, five, and Amani, four, are believed to be the youngest named victims of the crash so far. Mrs Ali Syed's sister-in-law, Yasmine Hassan, 45, broke down while confirming the children's names, and pleaded with officials to offer more support to the families of the 53 British citizens onboard the flight. 'They are so small, they are five and four. And it's just thinking how scared they must have been,' she told the Telegraph . 'We're not angry about the lack of answers [from UK government officials] – we understand that takes time. 'We're angry because no one has reached out to offer support or even ask if we need anything. These are British citizens.' Adam Taju, 72, and his wife Hasina, 70, were flying back to the UK with their son-in-law Altafhusen Patel, 51, when they lost their lives in the tragedy, The four had been spending time with Mr Taju's 96-year-old father in India to celebrate Eid, their son Altaf Taju told MailOnline. 'He's the one they wanted to see because he's 96 and it's very hot in India. No one goes to India this time of year but they said 'We don't know how long he's going to be around, let's go and celebrate Eid.' Altaf added: 'I'm the eldest person in the family now. I'm here with my sisters. I'm flying out with my two sisters. The other one can't make it as she's a cancer patient. Adam was a retired machinist who'd worked making leather coats and Hasina had been a housewife. The couple, who had lived in a terraced property in Ilford since the 1970s, had four children, a boy and three girls. One of their daughters who lives has since flown back to Redbridge to be with family. Adam's son, Altaf Taju, told the Mail the family hoped to be flying out to India by Sunday, so they could conduct the burials next week. Mr Taju, who is from Blackburn, said he'd travelled down to London to support his sister Shamim who was married to Altafhusen Patel. Mr Taju said: 'I'm okay. I'm the eldest son of the family. My uncle rang me to tell me what had happened. 'We've lost three members of my family and my brother in law who's married to my sister. My sister is alone here.' Explaining how burials of his family members will take place in their respective home villages, his mother and father in Sansrod, Gujarat, and his brother-in-law in Bharuch, Mr Taju called for the release of the bodies. 'We need to get the release of the bodies and bring them home and start mourning in the Islamic way, whatever is left of them,' he said. 'I have told them to wait for us, until we get there, because I want to put them down in the grave.' Friend and neighbour Iqbal Hussain, 44, who has known Adam and Hasina since he was a child, described them as a 'smiling' and 'loving family'. 'It's a sad thing. They were happy when they left [to go to India]. They were going on holiday to celebrate Eid,' he said. 'They were part of the Neighbourhood Watch group. We're all devastated. 'Anything they needed we'd help them with. They weren't very IT savvy and I used to help them out,' the IT manager added: 'We grew up with their children. I was friends with Afia, their youngest daughter.' Recalling the moment his local councillor who's from the Gujarat community informed him of the plane crash, as well as Adam and Hasina being on board, Mr Hussain said: ''I thought 'That cannot be true'. 'I called the youngest daughter [Afia]. She was crying. She didn't say much. All she said was 'Say prayers for my parents'. She was hoping they were okay and alive.' Councillor Salim Patel described Adam as 'a wonderful man, a community man', who was 'always out and about supporting communities'. 'He will be very missed,' he said: 'It will take a very long time for this community to accept he's not there. It's a great loss, to lose him as a human being. 'Whatever the community needed he would stand up with the community, whether it was to help campaign against fly-tipping or help people in need during Covid. 'Whenever I needed his support, he would be there. 'He was a kind and humble gentleman. There are no words to describe how we are going to miss him. I've known him for nearly 30 years. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner issued a mayday call moments before it crashed around lunchtime on Thursday after lifting barely 100 metres (330 feet) from the ground. Investigators have also since recovered a black box recorder on Friday from the crash site, with forensic teams still looking for the second. US planemaker Boeing said it was in touch with Air India and stood 'ready to support them' over the incident, which a source close to the case said was the first crash for a 787 Dreamliner. It comes as an aviation expert believes the co-pilot on Air India flight AI171 pulled the plane's wing flaps instead of retracting the landing gear, causing the plane to crash. Commercial airline pilot and YouTuber Captain Steve, who analyzes plane crashes and close calls, gave his theory on the incident which killed 241 people on board . The London -bound 787 Dreamliner began losing height moments after take-off and crashed in a fireball over a residential area in the Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Steve said he suspected there had been an exceptionally simple error in the cockpit when the co-pilot was asked to retract the landing gear, with devastating consequences. He said: 'Here's what I think happened, again folks this is just my opinion. I think the pilot flying said to the co-pilot said 'gear up' at the appropriate time. 'I think the co-pilot grabbed the flap handle and raised the flaps, instead of the gear. If that happened, this explains a lot of why this airplane stopped flying.' Steve said that the flaps being raised would cause the flight to lose airspeed and altitude quickly, something he thinks the pilot would have struggled to control. He explained his theory by saying the 787's composite wings would normally bend during take off as lift forces take it into the air. But the Air India plane appears to show no such bending, amid widespread speculation the flaps which help lift the plane off had accidentally been retracted. It remains unclear what caused Thursday's tragedy, with mechanical failure or pilot error among the possible causes that investigators will now work to identify. Among those believed to have died is Captain Sumeet Sabharwal , the pilot operating the Boeing 787. Mr Sabharwal, who had 8,200 hours of experience, was named as the pilot of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. First Officer Clive Kunder, from Mumbai and who was co-piloting, had logged 1,100 of flying hours and completed his training at the Florida-based Paris Air Flight School. King Charles III and other members of the royal family wore black armbands and there was a moment of silence during his annual birthday parade on Saturday as the monarch commemorates those who died in this week's Air India plane crash. Charles requested the symbolic moves 'as a mark of respect for the lives lost, the families in mourning and all the communities affected by this awful tragedy,' Buckingham Palace said.
