A 74-year-old billionaire has died in an accident at Lake Ranco, a popular vacation spot in southern Chile.
Former Chilean President Sebastian Pinilla, a billionaire who twice held the South American nation's top office, has died in a helicopter crash, his office said in a statement.
“It is with great regret that we announce the death of the former president of the Republic of Chile,” it said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that Piñera, 74, died about 920 kilometers from Lago Ranco, a popular tourist destination. Ta. miles) south of Santiago.
Chile's Interior Minister Carolina Toja confirmed the former president's death. Further details about the cause of the accident were not immediately released.
Chile's national disaster agency, Sena Prado, confirmed that one person was killed and three others injured. The government did not immediately release the names of the people on board.
A successful businessman, Mr. Piñera led the country in his first term as president from 2010 to 2014, at a time when many of Chile's trading partners and neighbors were facing sharp growth slowdowns. and oversaw a sharp decline in the unemployment rate.
His second presidential term, from 2018 to 2022, was marked by violent protests against inequality that led to accusations of human rights abuses, and ended with the government promising to draft a new constitution.
Piñera was the owner of Chile's fifth largest fortune, estimated at about $3 billion. For almost 20 years, he worked as an academic at several universities and as a consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank.
As a businessman from the 1970s to the 1990s, he worked in various industries, including real estate. He held shares in major airlines, as well as telecommunications, real estate, and power companies. He also founded one of the largest credit card companies in the country. In 2009, he handed over management of his business to others.
He entered politics on behalf of the centre-right party, which supported the military regime from the civilian population. It also distanced itself from the 1973-1990 rule of General Augusto Pinochet, in which more than 3,000 suspected leftists were killed or “disappeared.”
Mr. Pinilla ran for Chile's president three times. In 2006 he lost to socialist Michelle Bachelet. In 2010, he defeated former President Eduard Frei. In 2018, four years after his first term, he won a second four-year term, defeating a left-wing independent.
Twelve days before his first term began, an 8.8 magnitude earthquake and tsunami struck, killing 525 people and destroying infrastructure in south-central Chile.
The Piñera government's agenda has been postponed to address urgent reconstruction efforts. In 2010, he gained worldwide attention when he led an unprecedented rescue mission of 33 miners who had been trapped at the bottom of a mine in the Atacama Desert for 69 days.
The event became a global media sensation and the subject of the 2014 film The 33.
He created an estimated 1 million jobs and shut down the government.