King Charles marks Air India tragedy with moment of silence during birthday parade

Members of the royal family wore black armbands as the monarch commemorated those who died in this week’s plane crash.

Britain’s royal family watch the flypast on the balcony of Buckingham Palace after attending the King's Birthday Parade. Picture: AFP

King Charles and other members of the royal family in uniform wore black armbands and observed a moment of silence during his annual birthday parade Saturday as the monarch commemorated 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.

The military ceremony dates back to a time when flags of the battalion, known as colours, were “trooped,‘’ or shown, to soldiers in the ranks so they could recognize them.

Britain's Prince William, salutes at the Trooping the Colour, the king's annual birthday parade, in London. Picture: Aaron Chown/PA via AP

All members of the royal family in uniform wore black armbands. The moment of silence occurred while the king was 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.Hundreds of people gathered outside the palace and along The Mall to watch the spectacle.

They included a small group of anti-monarchist protesters with yellow placards reading “not my king” and “down with the crown”.

Charles, who is still undergoing weekly treatment for an unspecified cancer, was accompanied by Queen Camilla for the parade.

Also present were heir Prince William, 42, his wife Catherine, also known as Kate, and their three children: George, 11, Charlotte, 10 and Louis, seven.

Not present at Saturday’s parade, were Charles’s estranged younger son Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, who both stepped down from royal family duties in 2020, and moved to the United States.

Harry’s fraught ties with his family have worsened since he and Meghan made various public allegations against the royals.

Harry and his brother William are said to barely be on speaking terms, according to UK media.

Although Trooping of the Colour takes place in June, the king was actually born in November.

The parade comes on the same day that US President Donald Trump presides over a huge military parade in Washington on his 79th birthday.

AFP/AP