Sebastián Piñera died this Tuesday in an accident with one of his private helicopters, in the rural area of Ilihue, in the municipality of Lago Ranco, in the Los Ríos region. The former president of Chile was traveling aboard a plane he owned, a model that began production in 2007 and was promoted as “reliable, economical and easy to maintain.”
The helicopter was a Robinson R66 Turbine model. “Reliable, economical and easy to maintain” is the definition with which it is presented on the brand’s official website. The one carrying the former president had the registration CCDGV.
Furthermore, according to the representative page in Argentina, it has among its advantages “a greater power reserve, an additional payload and better performance at altitude”. Additionally, it features crash energy-absorbing seats and a crash-resistant fuel system.
Already in 2011 Piñera had had problems with a helicopter. In that case it was a Robinson 44, a previous model from the same company. It happened at 2pm on Saturday 22 January, when the plane ran out of fuel and had to make an emergency landing on the regional road in the municipality of Quilicura Bajo, near Curanipe, in Region VII, about 300 kilometers south of Santiago. .
That time Piñera was accompanied by the entrepreneur Andrés Navarro. They went from Viña del Mar to Ranco, at the beginning of the summer holidays. Subsequently, the former president tried to deny that it was an emergency landing: he said that it was a planned stop.
Source: Clarin
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