Sebastián Piñera
died from "asphyxiation due to submersion" after the helicopter he was driving crashed in Lake Ranco, located about 900 kilometers south of Santiago.
This is the exact information revealed by the autopsy performed on the
former president of Chile
.
However, the causes of the fatal accident remain under a question mark and that is where Fabio Valdés, a lifelong personal friend of the two-time trans-Andean president, pointed out.
"They went to the Cox house yesterday morning and, at lunchtime, they said 'now, let's go back.'
It is a seven-minute helicopter ride, very short.
The weather
was drizzling, not that there was a terrible rain
.
The clouds were high, there was no wind.
And according to Cox, who is also a pilot, it was not reckless to make that seven-minute return trip,” was the description given by the man who had known Piñera since he was 5 years old.
Then, he provided important information in reference to the collapse of the device: "Apparently, the windshield, so to speak, of the helicopter, completely fogged up and
he was left blind
. "
“100 meters away from the Cox house he tried to return to land, return to the beach.
There, perhaps, due to
a bad maneuver or precipitation, I don't know
that very well, as a result of the circumstances he was experiencing, almost blind, the helicopter fell and landed on its side.
She fell to his side
.
And he must have received the blow,” Valdés said in statements to Radio Agricultura, where he served in the past as president of the board of directors.
Personnel from the Investigative Police (PDI) are investigating the circumstances of the accident that cost the life of former Chilean president, Sebastián Piñera, on Tuesday.
Photo EFE/Investigative Police.
Then, he explained how, according to his version of events, the three survivors were able to get out of the ship: “There, Ignacio Guerrero, who was with him, on the other side of the helicopter, the side that is not attached to the water, opened the doors. "He came out, his son came out, 'Pichita', Sebastián's sister, barely came out."
“They tried to get Sebastián out, but the helicopter was semi-sunken and
Sebastián was semi-sunken, and they couldn't get him out
,” he said about the ship that crashed around 3 p.m. on Tuesday and was submerged at almost 30 meters.
Previously, Valdés, Piñera's schoolmate and who confessed to being afraid of helicopters before this tragedy, said that he asked the former Chilean president to be cautious when getting on them.
“Many times I told him 'Sebastián, be careful,
this little thing is dangerous
.'
But he had a lot of faith in himself, he was also lucky, because he had other mishaps from which he emerged unscathed,” he commented.
“Without a belt and on the side of the helicopter”: what the diver who found Piñera's body said
Ricardo González, a member of the Lago Ranco Fire Department and who found the body of Sebastián Piñera, recounted how the body of the former Chilean president was extracted from the bottom of the reflecting pool.
“It was not complex, since the weather conditions, temperature, water, wind, depth and sounding, were favorable for free diving,” González said in statements reproduced by La Tercera de Chile.
He also said that Piñera “
was free, without his belt, on the side of the helicopter
, 28 meters deep” and that from the time he jumped into the water until he removed the body “approximately 10 minutes passed.”
Piñera's body “was free, without the belt, on the side of the helicopter, said the diver who extracted him from the water.
“When we arrived at the scene, witnesses and relatives told us again that the person who was trapped was him, the former president.
"They stayed on land and two divers were on the boat."
Piñera's remains began to be laid to rest this Wednesday in the Hall of Honor of the former National Congress, in the Chilean capital.
The ceremony will continue on Thursday, while on Friday the remains will be transferred to La Moneda and then to the Metropolitan Cathedral, in the Plaza de Armas of the capital, for the celebration of tributes.
IS