Jimmy Carter’s remains arrive in Washington DC for state funeral rites
Share:
From Georgia, body of late ex-president brought to US capital nearly 44 years after he left in humbling defeat. Nearly 44 years after Jimmy Carter left the country’s capital in humbling defeat, the 39th president returned to Washington DC for three days of state funeral rites starting on Tuesday.
![[people stand in rows in front of white building]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e89a7dd06e3eafb6656d688a89594d1ff2052266/0_0_6000_4000/master/6000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Carter’s remains, which had been lying in repose at the Carter Presidential Center since Saturday, left the Atlanta campus on Tuesday morning, accompanied by his children and extended family. Special Air Mission 39 departed Dobbins air reserve base north of Atlanta and arrived at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. A motorcade carried the casket into Washington for a final journey to the Capitol, where members of Congress will pay their respects.
![[woman in black sitting on chair greets man wearing black suit and red tie as people stand next them]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0e57890cfb8baa59f603515c993de578b2728877/0_0_5743_4121/master/5743.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
In Georgia, eight military pallbearers held Carter’s casket as cannons fired on the tarmac nearby. They carried it to a vehicle that lifted it to the passenger compartment of the aircraft, the blue and white Boeing 747 variant that is known as Air Force One when the sitting president is on board. Carter never traveled as president on the jet, which first flew as Air Force One in 1990 with George HW Bush.
The scene repeated outside Washington. The former president’s casket was removed from the plane, cannons fired and a military band played. A hearse emblazoned with the seal of the president joined a motorcade that steered toward Washington. A bipartisan delegation of members of Congress were led in to the Capitol rotunda by Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, Democrats who represent Carter’s home state. Three of the nine US supreme court justices were also present. Justices John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh and Elena Kagan stood next to the Washington DC mayor, Muriel Bowser, in the rotunda.
