The last flight of Army sergeants Simone Ruggia and Claudio Marchesi, and Red Cross military corps sergeant and lieutenant Laura Procacci and Franco Adriano Zecchillo, was on a C-130 that brought them back to Italy this morning. The plane with the bodies of the four soldiers who died last Thursday in the accident of the Italian helicopter which crashed in Bosnia last Thursday during a training flight landed on the Ciampino runway shortly after 12.
The four coffins, wrapped in the Tricolore, were welcomed by family members and the highest officials of the State. On the track were the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the Minister of Defense, Guido Crosetto and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani. After the military honors and the religious blessing of the coffins in the large square of the airport, the head of state paid homage to them by pausing for a few moments in contemplation in front of each coffin on which he placed his hand. Then, before the departure of the hearses, the most painful moment with the farewell of the relatives. And on Tuesday morning, in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri in Piazza della Repubblica, in the center of Rome, the solemn funeral will be celebrated in the presence of high military and civil officials. Expected at the funeral are President Mattarella, Prime Minister Meloni, the presidents of the Senate and Chamber, Ignazio La Russa and Lorenzo Fontana. Meanwhile, the funeral home of Ruggia, Marchesi and Zecchillo was opened to the public in the early afternoon. Many colleagues, friends and relatives who came to pay their respects.
“He was too good, too exuberant, he was just too much,” says Marchesi's aunt. While a colleague of Ruggia remembers that they last spoke a week ago, shortly before his departure for Bosnia: "He was enthusiastic, very much", he says, explaining that he had recently gotten married. Laura Procacci's body, however, was first taken from Ciampino to the Tor Vergata Polyclinic for the autopsy ordered by the Rome Prosecutor's Office and then to the Celio funeral home. After the accident, she was taken alive to a Bosnian hospital where she died shortly after. An external examination of the bodies in Bosnia has already been carried out on the other three victims, from which it emerged that the death was linked to violent crushing. The public prosecutor of Piazzale Clodio Francesco Saverio Musolino is proceeding against unknown persons for negligent disaster, manslaughter and injuries. The Capitoline investigators have already heard, through the police forces sent to the scene, the three pilots and the survivors, but it cannot be ruled out that as soon as conditions allow it they will be interviewed again. Among them medical lieutenant colonel Flavio Favari, third member of the Medevac team of the Red Cross and the only survivor of the health team which also included Zecchillo and Procacci.
At the moment the most accredited lead is that of the failure of the vehicle, but further answers will come from a technical consultancy that will be arranged. The investigative activity will focus in particular on the technical investigations on the wreckage of the Chinook and on the analysis of the black box, elements considered fundamental for reconstructing what happened in the moments preceding the crash. The magistrates of the Military Prosecutor's Office are also working to clarify the details of the accident and are prosecuting for the negligent loss of an aircraft. But now is the time for pain. The mayor of Andria, Giovanna Bruno, has proclaimed city mourning for Wednesday when the funeral of 32-year-old Laura Procacci will be celebrated in the city sanctuary. The body of the sergeant of the Red Cross volunteer military corps will arrive on Tuesday afternoon in the village of Montegrosso, a hamlet of Andria where she spent her childhood. And there will also be citizen mourning in Salerno, the city of origin of Sergeant Simone Ruggia, on Tuesday on the occasion of the state funeral. For Marchesi, originally from Orvieto, the Municipality has proclaimed two days of mourning on 3 and 4 November.
