Six-day state funeral for Carter gets underway

PLAINS, United States:Mourners are to begin paying their respects to Jimmy Carter on Saturday, kicking off a carefully choreographed six-day farewell for America’s longest-lived president.

Carter’s state funeral officially began on Saturday with Secret Service agents carrying his casket to a hearse for a tour through Plains.

The motorcade bearing his remains is to pause at Carter’s boyhood family peanut farm while a farm bell rings 39 times in honour of America’s 39th president. His body will then be taken to Atlanta for a brief stop at the Georgia Capitol, where Carter served as a state senator. From there, Carter will be escorted to the Carter Presidential Center where he will lie in repose from 7:00 pm on Saturday (0000 GMT Sunday) to 6:00 am (1100 GMT) on Tuesday to allow the public to pay their respects. Carter’s remains will be flown on Tuesday morning from a military base in Georgia to Joint Base Andrews outside Washington on a US Air Force plane dubbed Special Air Mission 39.

A motorcade will then transport the body to the US Navy Memorial. Carter will be transferred from a hearse to a horse-drawn caisson for a funeral procession to the US Capitol. Military pall bearers will carry his flag-draped casket to the rotunda of the Capitol where his body will lie in state until 7:00 am (1200 GMT) on Thursday surrounded by a guard of honor of service members.

Following the cathedral service, Carter’s remains will be flown aboard Special Air Mission 39 back to Georgia for a private funeral service at the Baptist church in Plains where Carter taught Sunday school.