Sebastián Piñera (1949-2024), who died this Tuesday in a helicopter accident in southern Chile, had a private pilot's license for two decades. Piñera was piloting the helicopter that crashed this afternoon in the Ilihue sector, near his summer home in the Ranco Lake area. Three other crew members were traveling on the aircraft and they are safe. Despite his vast experience – it is required to fly at least 12 hours a year to renew the license – he aroused certain apprehensions when he assumed the presidency of his first term (2010-2014) for piloting his private aircraft. . Piñera, a man characterized by his energy and hyperactivity, continued to develop his hobby.
His first helicopter was a Robinson R44, a single-engine with four seats. He bought it with his friend, businessman Andrés Navarro. Both took the course to learn to pilot with Alfonso Wenzel, a former naval officer who graduated as an aviation expert in Pensacola, United States, who had instructed a handful of successful Chilean businessmen. Wenzel told the magazine in 2011 What's happening that Piñera was a very busy man. “Sometimes he was gone, other times he was gone for 15 minutes. As a teacher, I became worried, because to learn to fly you need a very rigorous routine,” he said.
Of the 40 mandatory theoretical hours, Piñera completed only the first 16 in person. The then businessman was diligent, but he studied alone. He then completed the course with 50 hours of flying. In the licensing exam he obtained an 80% pass rate.
In 2007, more was known about his hobby when the municipality of Quellón, on the island of Chiloé, fined him for landing his helicopter in the municipal stadium without notice or permission, while a game in an under 13 league was being played. “I didn't do it. in bad faith, I think that by doing so, one can make a mistake. I assume it and I will attend the summons,” he said then in relation to the order of the local police court. In 2011, already in the presidency, the president and his friend Navarro landed on a regional highway in the town of Quilicura, about 300 kilometers south of Santiago. Piñera got out to ask where he was and made a phone call, to the astonishment of the neighbors who recorded his arrival. Then, he landed a Carabineros helicopter to help him. “For safety reasons, together with Antonio Navarro, who was piloting at that time, we landed in Quilicura, north of Cobquecura, to refuel,” he later posted on Twitter.
After a serious fall in 2014, which forced the former president to be treated in the emergency room at the Castro Hospital in Chiloé, Piñera wanted to give a strong sign of recovery. True to his style, the next day he uploaded a battery of images to social networks in which he appeared piloting his helicopter in the southern ice fields.
“He didn't like that I responded with variables. “He always wanted concrete facts and quick answers,” Wenzel recalled in the interview with What's happening. “On one occasion there was a lot of turbulence. I decided to return, but if not, he would have continued. Piñera should have learned that to be a good pilot you have to be more reflective, and walk more slowly, less in a hurry.” One day before the second round of the 2010 presidential elections, which made him Chile's first right-wing president since the return to democracy, he went out driving with his instructor. When flying over the presidential palace of La Moneda, Wenzel asked him: Will that be his new house? Piñera simply smiled.
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