Expert reports carried out by the Legal Medical Service of Valdivia, in Chile, confirm that the death of former president Sebastián Piñera was caused by asphyxia due to submersion, a technical term used for drowning. The information was revealed by the Chilean newspaper Third.
Piñera died on Tuesday 6, aged 74, in a helicopter crash in Lago Ranco, in central Chile.
The reports deflate the first theory presented by the authorities, which suspected that the politician may have suffered a heart attack while piloting the helicopter.
The regional prosecutor of Los Ríos, Tatiana Esquivel, cited by the newspaper, stated that the autopsy “was carried out during the night and this morning” and that the Public Ministry “is already in a position to inform the community that the medico-legal cause of the former president Sebastián Piñera is asphyxiation by submersion”.
The causes of the accident remain under investigation. According to Esquivel, forensic expertise will allow “to develop a more probable theory of what the dynamics of this aircraft crash would have been like”.
Piñera has a house in the rural region where the fall occurred and frequented the property during vacations. He was returning from lunch at the home of businessman José Cox.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, there were four people in the helicopter. The other three crew members are out of danger.