King Charles III to mark Air India tragedy with moment of silence during annual birthday parade
LONDON (AP) — King Charles III and other members of the royal family will wear black armbands and there will be a moment of silence during his annual birthday parade 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.
An Air India flight from the northwestern city of Ahmedabad to London crashed shortly after takeoff on Thursday, killing 241 people on board and at least 29 on the ground. The plane was carrying 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian. One man survived.
In addition to being Britain's head of state, Charles is the head of the Commonwealth, an organization of independent states that includes India and Canada.
The monarch's annual birthday parade, known as Trooping the Colour, is a historic ceremony filled with pageantry and military bands in which the king reviews his troops on Horse Guards Parade adjacent to St. James' Park in central London.
All members of the royal family taking part in the parade will wear black armbands. The moment of silence will occur when the king is on the dais after reviewing the troops.
Charles' mother, Queen Elizabeth II, held a similar moment of silence in 2017 when Trooping the Colour took place three days after a fire ripped through the Grenfell Tower apartment bloc in west London, killing 72 people.
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