It’s not every day a serving British monarch dies. There has to be a plan. And so, with the death of Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 96 on Thursday, the long-awaited \u201cOperation London Bridge\u201d swung into action.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Named after a former London landmark that was forever \u201cfalling down,\u201d Operation London Bridge was the code word attributed to a formally choreographed sequence of events that would occur after the death of the British monarch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The not-so-secret plan has never officially been released, though versions of it have been leaked several times over the years. It is designed to ensure not only that the news of the queen’s death was broken in a dignified manner and her memory commemorated, but also to ensure the continuation of the royal throne as Britain’s head of state.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
According to one account of the procedure published by the Guardian after a 2017 investigation, the news of the queen’s passing would be privately announced by the queen’s private secretary with a coded phrase:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cLondon Bridge is down.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
According to accounts of the plan, the day of the death is known as \u201cD-Day.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Under the expected procedure, after the British monarch dies, his or her replacement takes over immediately. This means that after Queen Elizabeth II died on Thursday, her son Prince Charles automatically became monarch \u2014 and in his case, he became King Charles III.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
For the BBC, a state-funded broadcaster, the procedure is complicated. The news is expected to be broken in a careful, somber manner, with hosts wearing black to dignify the importance of what has happened. An alarm for national emergencies, rarely used, will go off in the offices.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n