Sebastian Fest Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Updated Wednesday, February 7, 2024-01:23

  • Latin America Former president of Chile Sebastián Piñera dies in a helicopter accident

Twice a tenant of the La Moneda palace, Sebastián Piñera had decided to moderate his image, already in retirement, just as

he moderated the Chilean center-right during his time as President

. The businessman, head of state between 2010 and 2014 and 2018 and 2022, died this Tuesday in a helicopter accident in the south of the country.

The death of

Piñera

, 74 years old, was confirmed by his office: "With deep regret we announce the death of the former president of the Republic of Chile Sebastián Piñera Echenique. During this Tuesday, September 6, the former president suffered an accident in the region of the rivers".

Carolina Tohá, Minister of the Interior, gave more details about what happened.

"There were four crew members on the helicopter. Three of them were able to reach the shore by their own means, they are out of danger, but this was not the case with the fourth crew member, who was former president Sebastián Piñera. The Navy managed to recover the body of the former president PIñera, who has died.

We want to express the shock of this tragedy, to extend our solidarity hug to the family of the former Chilean president, to all those close to him, but also to all Chileans, because Sebastián Piñera was democratic president of Chile on two occasions and will have all the honors and democratic recognitions that it deserves. President Boric has ordered a

state funeral

, to declare national mourning and to send our solidarity and support to his family."

Preliminary information indicates that, on an afternoon with significant rain on Lake Ranco, where the former president had a summer home, the helicopter plunged into the water. The machine would have sunk 40 meters and Piñera was unable to unfasten the seat belt.


The former president was spending his summer vacation at his lake house. The helicopter that plunged into the waters was his, and he used to pilot it himself. Piñera had recently renewed his helicopter pilot's license, said Chilean television, which added that the former president was in command of the machine at the time of the accident.

Informed of the fact, President

Gabriel Boric

, who was in Viña del Mar following the fight against the serious fires that are ravaging the central area of ​​the country, headed to the La Moneda palace. Various governments in the region, including neighboring Argentina, presented their condolences. Mauricio Macri, former Argentine president, was one of the first to react and lamented the loss of his "friend and good person."

"I always valued former President Piñera's commitment to our country and democracy," said former social democratic president

Michelle Bachelet

.

The center-right Piñera maintained a cordial relationship with Boric, the most left-wing president since Salvador Allende in the 1970s.

An engineer and doctor in economics, Piñera was married to Cecilia Morel and was the father of four children.

The shocking news came in days when

Ricardo Lagos

, president between 2000 and 2006, announced his retirement from public life at the age of 85, and in the midst of the devastating fires. February, the month with the greatest vacation depth in the Chilean summer, gives the southern country no respite.

Piñera achieved a milestone when he arrived at the La Moneda palace in 2010: his victory over the Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei implied the first electoral success of the right after 20 years of dominance by the center-left in the new Chilean democratic stage. No other right-wing politician governed the country in those 34 years of democracy.

At the time, Piñera, who became president of the Lan Chile airline, was one of the 10 largest fortunes in the country, with an estimated amount of 2.7 billion dollars.

Piñera was critical of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, although with caveats: the human rights violations were "unacceptable", but the modernization of the country was "indisputable."

His main political decision came after the social outbreak of October 2019, when the demand of broad sectors of the country for change became clear. Piñera agreed with the left grouped around Boric and paved the way for a constituent process. A failed process, as would be seen later, because the first Constitution offer was rejected for being too leaning to the left, and the second, in December 2023, for leaning too much to the right.

"What options did our Government have on November 12, 2019?" the former president asked in an interview published in January by

La Tercera

. He himself gave the answer: "We followed the path of dialogue and not that of force. It was a very good decision."

Piñera regretted the failure of the constituent process. People close to him did not rule out that in 2025 he would try a new presidential race, something that coincided with the image he had exhibited since his departure from La Moneda on March 11, 2022: social networks, in which he was very active, showed him relaxed and close, sharing with his followers daily affairs and his decision to climb several flights of stairs to get to his office and no longer use the elevators.

Matías del Río, a renowned Chilean journalist, spoke with the former president this Monday, the day before his death: "He joked a lot about that third candidacy. When asked he answered 'Not today'. He showed impressive enthusiasm. We were not talking about a retired politician."