The autopsy performed on the body of the former president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, confirms that he died from drowning. The conservative politician died this Tuesday, at the age of 74, when the helicopter he was piloting fell into the waters of Lake Ranco, in the south of the country.
The prosecutor of the Los Ríos region, Tatiana Esquivel, confirmed this Wednesday that the cause of death was "asphyxiation due to submersion" and that Piñera sank with the device without being able to remove the seat belt, unlike his three companions. .
The body of the former president was transported yesterday on a military plane from southern Chile to an air base in Santiago, where he was received with honors by the leftist president Gabriel Boric and three of his ministers. His family, led by his widow, the former first lady, Cecilia Morel, was waiting for his coffin on the tarmac.
Subsequently, the mortal remains were transferred to the headquarters of the old National Congress, in Santiago, where the burning chapel will be installed and will be open until tomorrow, Thursday so that Chileans can say goodbye to the former president.
The funeral will be held on Friday in the Santiago cathedral and then the coffin will be transferred to a private cemetery on the outskirts of the capital. On the way, the funeral procession will stop in front of the La Moneda palace where the guard will pay their last honors.
The accident occurred minutes before three in the afternoon on Tuesday (local time), when for reasons that are still unknown the helicopter fell into the waters of Lake Ranco, very close to the shore. The other three passengers of the plane - Piñera's sister, Magdalena, businessman Ignacio Guerrero and his son, Bautista - managed to unfasten their seat belts and swim to the coast. However, Piñera did not succeed, he was trapped and sank along with the aircraft.
The former minister and former spokesperson for Piñera's second government, Karla Rubilar, revealed that seconds before crashing into the water, the former president asked his companions to remove their seat belts and jump, according to what Magdalena Piñera explained to her. "You jump first because if I jump with you, the helicopter is going to fall on you," said Rubilar, reconstructing the last words of the former president and businessman.
Piñera spent the southern summer holidays at his home in Bahía Coique, on the shores of Lake Ranco, about 900 kilometers south of Santiago. The former president, accompanied by three of his relatives, had gone to eat at the nearby house of a businessman friend and was upon returning, after taking off and flying for a few minutes, when Piñera lost control of the device and fell into the water, in the municipal area. by Futrono.
Just a few minutes after the former president's office confirmed his death, the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, appeared at the La Moneda palace to announce that the Navy had recovered Piñera's body from the bottom of the lake. Tohá confirmed that the other three passengers "were able to reach the shore on their own" and were "out of danger."
Shortly after, leftist president Gabriel Boric delivered an institutional message in La Moneda, declaring a three-day national mourning and announcing a state funeral. Boric, who took over from Piñera in 2022 after being one of his main critics – he even asked for a criminal investigation against him for the actions of the police in the social outbreak of 2019 – praised the figure of the former president. “He contributed from his vision to building great agreements for the good of the country,” said Boric.
A multimillionaire businessman – he was the owner of the Latam airline, the Chilevisión channel and the Colo-Colo football club –, Piñera presided over Chile on two occasions (2010-2014 and 2018-2022). A historic militant of the post-Pinochestista National Renewal party, his first term was marked by the reconstruction of the country after the 2010 tsunami and by the successful rescue, that same year, of the 33 miners buried in a mine in the Atacama Desert. On the other hand, the second period will be remembered for the repression of the violent social outbreak and the management of the pandemic.
After the death was confirmed, leaders from across the Chilean political spectrum, as well as presidents and former leaders from Latin America and the rest of the world, of different stripes, expressed their condolences.
