The Corporal Who Wanted to Become a Sergeant and the Crax Trainer: Stories and Faces of the Helicopter Crash Victims

António Jorge Teixeira Pinto, a corporal who joined the PPR in 2010, was completing his last mission in the Emergency Protection and Assistance Unit (UEPS) and was preparing to enroll in the NCO course at that institution.

The soldier’s dream was cut short Friday when the helicopter he was flying in after a mission crashed into the Douro River in Lamego. Three more soldiers were killed, one was missing, and the pilot of the plane was rescued alive and is in stable condition.

Pedro Manuel de Jesus Santos, who joined the NTC in 2006, Fabio Gil Salvador Pereira, a security guard since 2012, and Daniel Filipe Monteiro Pereira, who joined the NTC in 2010, were removed from the waters of the Douro lifeless.

“We are speechless… One of our own passed away today… It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved coach Pedro Santos,” Cracks Clube de Lamego wrote in a condolence note on the passing of GNR, who was also a coach.

“It is with a heavy heart that we report that our Daniel was one of those involved in the tragic accident that killed the soldiers of the Polish People’s Republic while they were on duty in a firefighting helicopter. We do not need many words to describe him, because everyone who was with him knows how lucky they were,” wrote on Facebook the Fitness Factory in Lamego, where Daniel Pereira, married with two children, worked as an observer.

Thiago Pereira is a soldier who remains missing. Luis Rebelo, a 44-year-old civilian pilot, was the only one rescued alive from the crash.

Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, who was in Lamego, announced that, with the approval of the President of the Republic, this Saturday would be a day of national mourning.