John Sidney McCain III, died at his Hidden Valley ranch in Sedona, Arizona, surrounded by his wife Cindy and his family at 4:28pm on Saturday

John McCain, pictured with daughter Meghan, in the last publicly available photograph posted to her Twitter account earlier this year

Flags were flying at half-staff at the White House on Sunday morning following the death of U.S. Senator John McCain after a year-long battle with brain cancer.

The 81-year-old maverick senator's body was given a police escort as he was taken to Phoenix from his Arizona ranch after he passed away Saturday night.

McCain will now lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda before his life is honored in a full dress funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral. 

The motorcade was transporting McCain from his family home in Sedona, Arizona, to Phoenix

He will also lie in rest at the Arizona Capital in Phoenix ahead of being buried at the U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery in Annapolis, Maryland.

McCain, who became a prominent critic of President Donald Trump, had made it known prior to his death that he did not want Trump to attend his funeral.

Vice President Mike Pence is expected to represent the current administration.

Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have both been asked of give eulogies at the funeral service, the New York Times reports.

No date has been set for his funeral.

McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who ran unsuccessfully for president as a self-styled maverick Republican in 2008, died on Saturday aged 81.
Flags were flying at half-staff at the White House on Sunday morning following the death of U.S. Senator John McCain after a year-long battle with brain cancer

He had been battling glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, discovered by his doctors in July 2017, and had not been at the U.S. Capitol in 2018. He also had surgery for an intestinal infection in April of this year.

His family announced on Friday that McCain, who served as a U.S. senator from Arizona for over three decades, was discontinuing further cancer treatment.

'Senator John Sidney McCain III died at 4:28 p.m. on August 25, 2018. With the senator when he passed were his wife Cindy and their family. At his death, he had served the United States of America faithfully for sixty years,' a statement from his office on Saturday said.

His wife Cindy McCain tweeted: 'My heart is broken. I am so lucky to have lived the adventure of loving this incredible man for 38 years.

'He passed the way he lived, on his own terms, surrounded by the people he loved, in the place he loved best.'

His daughter Meghan McCain wrote a heartbreaking tribute to her dad that was titlted: 'I love you forever, my beloved father'.

Shortly after 7pm local time a hearse left the senator's beloved Hidden Valley estate and led a motorcade as McCain's body was removed from the family home to be transported to Phoenix, with a number of people seen lining the route.