Thousands of people accompanied the bodies of young sisters Rikki and Racheli Menora to rest in the Etz Chaim cemetery in Beit Shemesh on Friday. The sisters, ages 16 and 15, were killed in a plane crash in Michigan along with their grandfather, Moshe Menora, and cousin Sara Klein, 17.

Sara and Moshe's funeral began in Jerusalem at 11:30 a.m. Sara lived in Har Nof, Jerusalem, while Rikki and Racheli lived in Beit Shemesh.

Rikki and Racheli's father, who is also Moshe's son, said of his daughters, “Rikki was a wonderful girl, who always wanted to give 100%... we just celebrated Racheli's fifteenth birthday.” Yehuda Menora, the girls' older brother, recalled Rikki as a talented young woman with many plans to make the world a better place, and Racheli as a quiet girl who smiled frequently and preferred action to words.

The girls' younger brother Yosef, 13, was in the crash as well, and was the sole survivor. Yosef was thrown from the plane, but suffered burns over most of his body. He is hospitalized in Michigan.

Doctors said Friday that his situation had improved somewhat, but that he remains in serious condition. Yehuda Menora appeared on Channel 2 news Thursday and asked the public to pray for his brother, whose Hebrew name has been changed to Netanel Yosef, ben [son of] Sima Simcha.

Volunteers with the ZAKA organization in the U.S. worked to identify the bodies and have them flown to Israel for burial. The wreckage of the plane has been shipped to Wisconsin, where it will be investigated in an attempt to determine what caused the crash.