Single engine air tanker (SEAT) crashes while battling wildfire in Chile
A single engine air tanker (SEAT) crashed while battling wildfire in Chile on 31 December 2022. The man, identified as Luis Sevillano Moreno, aged 34 of Spanish nationality, was fighting forest fires in Galvarino in an aircraft that capped at the scene. The Government, through the presidential delegate in La Araucanía, José Montalva, came out to clarify the fatal accident that ended the life of the Spanish pilot who crashed in his aircraft while fighting forest fires in La Araucanía in Chile.
The pilot flew his SEAT to fight the forest fires in Galvarino when the aircraft he was flying overturned after discharging water in Galvarino, in the La Araucanía region, 750 kilometres south of the capital. It was there when, for reasons that are being investigated, he died on the spot.
This, after alleged versions appeared that indicate of a shooting attack on the ill-fated pilot's plane. "This is an ongoing investigation. On the one hand, there is the Investigative Police and on the other hand, the General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC), are investigating the matter. Preliminarily, what the Investigative Police has indicated is that there would be no indications of that first, there was no formal complaint in this regard and the effective registration of the witnesses would not be a fact that would lead to indicating that there would have been third party intentions in this accident," the regional authority reported.
The government official announced that coordination with the Foreign Ministry has already been made. The foregoing, to specify the repatriation of the body of the Spanish pilot, pending its delivery to the Legal Medical Service.
To date there are four active forest fires in the area, in Galvarino and Lumaco, which are still trying to be put out with various brigades, land and air.