Chile – The Chilean ex-President Sebastian Pinera died in a helicopter crash on Tuesday in the south of the country, three sources stated.
Local media earlier reported the death of the 74-year-old former president, who served two terms from 2010-2014 and 2018-2022. Two current government officials and a former adviser to Pinera confirmed.
The former adviser said that Piñera was not to blame for the accident, but that 3 other people on board were rescued, as quoted by the website Anews.
Government sources quoted by the newspaper La Tercera said that 4 other people were on board the helicopter when it crashed, and that 3 of them had been “found by rescuers”.
Chile’s national crisis agency, SENAPRAD, reported that a helicopter crash had occurred in the southern city of Lago Ranco and that one user had died and three others had been injured.
The government did not immediately say who was on board.
Piñera, also a successful businessman, oversaw an immediate economic expansion and a sharp drop in unemployment during his first presidency from 2010 to 2014, at a time when many of Chile’s trading partners and neighbors were facing particularly slower expansion.
His second presidency, from 2018 to 2022, was marked by violent protests against inequality that led to accusations of human rights abuses and ended the government’s promise to draft a new constitution.
The two-time president oversaw the country’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which included one of the world’s fastest vaccination rates.
One of his first administration’s high points, touted often by Pinera himself, was the spectacular rescue in 2010 of 33 miners who were trapped underneath the Atacama desert. The event became a global media sensation and was the subject of a 2014 movie, “The 33.”