By Ione Wells in São Paulo and Patrick Jackson in LondonBBC News6 February 2024Video caption, Watch: President Piñera embraces Florencio Avalos, the first of the trapped Chilean miners to be rescued in 2010Chile’s ex-leader Sebastián Piñera, who served two terms and was a billionaire businessman, has died in a helicopter crash at the age of 74. Three others aboard the helicopter survived when it crashed into a lake near the southern town of Lago Ranco. It is not confirmed whether Piñera was piloting the aircraft. National mourning has been declared and tributes have come from across Latin America’s political spectrum. The conservative politician was recognized for the quick economic growth during his first term from 2010 to 2014. However, during his second term from 2018 until last year, there was significant social unrest. His left-wing successor as Chile’s president, Gabriel Boric, announced three days of mourning and a state funeral, and paid a warm tribute to Piñera. “We are all Chile and we should dream it, draw it and build it together,” Boric said, quoting Piñera. “We send a big hug to his family and loved ones in these hard times.” Brazil’s left-wing President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, expressed his surprise and sadness at Piñera’s death. “We got along, we worked to strengthen the relationship between our countries and we always had a good dialogue, when we were both presidents, and also when we weren’t,” Lula da Silva wrote. Argentina’s former conservative President Mauricio Macri said Piñera’s death was an “irreplaceable loss” and he felt “immense sadness”, while Iván Duque, the former conservative president of Colombia, expressed great sadness over the death of his friend. In 2010, Piñera became Chile’s first conservative president since the end of military rule in 1990. The Harvard-trained economist displaced the country’s first female President, Michelle Bachelet, promising to apply his business expertise to the country’s economic growth. Born in 1949, he became one of Chile’s wealthiest individuals, amassing his fortune in the 1980s when he introduced credit cards to Chile through his company Bancard. He also invested in Chile’s largest airline, Lan Chile, the country’s top football club, Colo Colo, and a television channel.
