Brazil’s Udirley Damasceno was standing in front of 300 friends and family, waiting for his bride to walk down the aisle. But instead of walking, Rosemere do Nascimento Silva, 32 decided to make a dramatic entrance and arrive on a helicopter.
Only one mile from the venue where the groom patiently waited, thick fog filled the skies and the aircraft crashed, claiming the lives of the bride, her brother, the wedding photographer and the pilot.
Several years later, footage of the fatal crash resurfaced and people are heartbroken by the the group’s final tragic moments before the chopper went down.
While visiting the venue she would be married, Rosemere do Nascimento Silva, 32, saw a photo of a bride standing next to a helicopter and decided that was how she had to arrive at her wedding, surprising her groom Udirley Damasceno, 34.
With the help of Helaine Aparecida Alves Silva, who was married Rosemere’s brother, Silvano, she put the plan into motion, intending to keep it a secret from the groom and the guests.
The bride would travel on the chopper with Silvano along with the wedding photographer Nayla Cristina Neves, who at the last minute replaced the 7-year-old son Helaine shares with Rosemere’s brother.
Neves, six months pregnant, was hired to record the entire wedding, including Rosemere’s grand arrival.
Days before the Saturday, December 4, 2016, wedding, Helaine recalls the excitement Rosmere was feeling about her big surprise: “She told me: ‘On Monday, everyone will be saying I’m rich’,” Helaine told a local news outlet says, referring to the 250 to 300 guests waiting at venue.
But the night before the big day, Helaine spoke with the flight company and was told to have a “plan B” in case the weather turned.
“They even called me the day before, telling me that the weather was expected to change, and that we should have a plan B in case we couldn’t take off due to bad weather. And we did. She would go by car,” Helaine shared.
Despite earlier warnings along with the thick fog that filled the skies, the aircraft – piloted by Peterson Pinheiro – took off about 3:30 p.m., for its arrival 25 minutes later.
“Rose was always late to places. We even called her ‘dinha’, in reference to ‘late,’” Helaine said of Rosemere, a former nursing assistant. “Everyone said that she would be late to her own wedding, and I said ‘no, she wouldn’t be late,’ because I knew she would come by helicopter. Silvano even called me when they were taking off, and told me to go ahead with the wedding, that they would arrive on time.”
In the video, recorded by Neeves, Rosemere – in her sweeping white gown – and her brother can be seen in the back seat of the Robinson 44 helicopter while the photographer was shooting the special moment from the front next to Pinheiro.
The group appeared to be enjoying the flight along with the scenery that became less visible as the fog became more dense.
In the final 5 minutes of the flight, the pilot begins to have difficulty controlling the aircraft and Neeves turns her equipment, showing the navigation panel and the ominous fog.
According to the Aviation Safety Network (ASN), the copter made its “approach” about one mile outside the rural area of Sao Paulo in Brazil.
Next, muffled screams can be heard, and the camera captures the horrifying crash that instantly killed Rosemere, Silvano, Neeves and Pinheiro.
Meanwhile, at the venue, the groom and the guests were waiting for the beautiful bride to make her appearance. Instead, the wedding planner, Carlos Eduardo Batista asked the officiating pastor to help him “break the awful news to the groom.”
“Udirley was shell-shocked and couldn’t speak as he tried to understand what had happened. He was heartbroken,” Batista told Metro.
Helaine, who lost her husband Silvano in the crash adds, “We’ve been married for 13 years, living together. You can’t get over it, it’s one day at a time. My son still asks for his father, he still asks, he hasn’t recovered. There are nights when he cries,” she says.
“It was supposed to be a wedding that, unexpectedly, turned into a funeral.”
Subsequent investigations revealed that “diverse weather conditions seriously impaired the pilot’s spatial orientation in the visual aspect,” along with “flight indiscipline.”
“[The] pilot opted to join in adverse weather conditions and to continue the flight, without having technical qualification, specific training and aircraft certified for IFR [Instrument Flight Rules] conditions,” the ASN reports.
According to Udirley’s Instagram, the grief-stricken groom found love again and married in 2018.
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