Self-made billionaire Aubrey McClendon, who together with his wife owned vacation homes in Bermuda, died in a car crash in the US yesterday.

The 56-year-old was killed in a single vehicle crash in Oklahoma City. His car hit an embankment under a bridge.

Mr McClendon’s death comes a day after he was charged with rigging bids for oil and natural gas leases in Oklahoma. He cofounded Chesapeake Energy Corporation in 1993 and was its chief executive officer until 2013.

Last night he was remembered as a charismatic and pleasant man, by Bermuda entrepreneur and musician Tony Brannon.

“He was a really nice person. He was very generous and was complementary to us when we were hired as a band to play at an event for Chesapeake executives at Tucker’s Point,” said Mr Brannon. “What has happened is very sad.”

Mr McClendon and his wife Katie, a Whirlpool heiress, bought a number of properties in Bermuda during the past decade.

In 2007, the couple purchased the extensive Castle Point property in Tucker’s Town for $21 million.

At the time the house and guest cottages on an eight-acre plot at the end of Tucker’s Town Road were in a rundown state. The property was given a makeover, which included a refurbished swimming pool, small golf course and a pond.

The McClendons later sold that property. In 2011, Mrs McClendon bought the nearby beachfront Winsor House for $11 million, and apparently also purchased a neighbouring house at the same time.

Mr McClendon’s charisma as a businessman was noted by Forbes magazine, which once featured him on its front cover and declared him to be “America’s Most Reckless Billionaire.”

He was a pioneering champion of the oil and natural gas drilling technique known as fracking, which led to a boom in US oil and gas production. Fracking is now seen as one of the major contributing factors that has led to the current world oil glut and the collapse in oil and natural gas prices.

Mr McClendon enjoyed phenomenal success at the helm of Chesapeake Energy, which was set up with $50,000 of capital in 1989. At one point the company was valued at $35 billion and Mr McClendon’s personal fortune was estimated at $1 billion by Forbes.

His lavish lifestyle included extensive ownership of properties and a stake in NBA team Oklahoma City Thunder.

However, he left Chesapeake Energy in controversial circumstances after a governance scandal. A shareholder revolt by billionaire Carl Icahn cost him his annual bonus and the chairmanship in 2012 and led to his resignation in early 2013.

Then, on Tuesday, he was charged by a federal grand jury in Oklahoma in connection with an alleged scheme between two “large oil and gas companies” to not bid against each other for leases in the northwest of the state. The scheme was said to have operated between December 2007 to March 2012.

In a statement on Tuesday evening Mr McClendon called the charge “wrong and unprecedented”.

The antitrust law he was accused of violating, known as the Sherman Act, carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years and a $1 million fine for individuals.

At a press conference yesterday, Paco Balderrama, an Oklahoma police captain, said Mr McClendon’s Chevrolet Tahoe was travelling a “at a high rate of speed” when it slammed into a bridge embankment in northeast Oklahoma City. The car burst into flames before responders could pull Mr McClendon’s body from the vehicle, Mr Balderrama added.

According to KFOR News Channel 4, in Oklahoma City, Mr Balderrama said: “He pretty much drove straight into the wall. The information out there at the scene is that he went left of centre, went through a grassy area right before colliding into the embankment. There was plenty of opportunity for him to correct and get back on the roadway, and that didn’t occur.”