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Billionaire U.S. Coal Baron Cline Dies in Helicopter Crash

  • Cline created Foresight Energy to expand into Illinois mining
  • Born into coal, he was among the industry’s richest chiefs
Christopher Cline 

Christopher Cline 

Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
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Christopher Cline, the billionaire coal tycoon best known for reviving Illinois’s mining industry and making a fortune doing it, died in a helicopter crash Thursday.

Cline died in an accident off the Bahamas along with his daughter, Kameron Cline, and five others, Brian Glasser, an attorney who represented Cline, said by telephone. He was the founder of St. Louis, Missouri-based coal miner Foresight Energy LP, a joint venture with Robert Murray’s Murray Energy Corp.