Former Chilean president Sebastián Piñera dies in helicopter crash

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Former two-time Chilean President Sebastián Piñera died in a helicopter crash, the government said Tuesday afternoon.

In a national address, Interior Minister Carolina Tohá said Piñera, 74, was killed and three people escaped.

“President Piñera governed us and we will remember him for the way he dedicated his life to public service,” Tohá said, adding that President Gabriel Boric ordered a state funeral and a period of national mourning.

It was not clear what caused the crash in the Los Rios region, where rain fell Tuesday afternoon.

In a statement, Chile’s National Disaster Prevention and Response Service said a helicopter crashed in Lago Ranco, a rural town in southern Chile. First responders recovered Piñera’s body. Tohá did not identify the other passengers.

News of Piñera’s death reverberated across the region, spurring condolences from former and current leaders.

“I feel the greatest pain for the death of my great friend and colleague Sebastián Piñera,” Iván Duque, Colombia’s right-wing president from 2018 to 2022, wrote on X. “Dear Sebastián you will always be in our memory and we will defend your legacy.”

Antonio Ledezma, a Venezuelan opposition leader, praised Piñera’s “firm solidarity with the struggle of the Venezuelan people.”

Piñera, a billionaire center-right politician, served two nonconsecutive presidential terms — one from 2010 to 2014, then from 2018 to 2022. His second was marked by major protests over social inequality and two opposition-led attempts to impeach him.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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