- Helicopter crashed into a Cairns hotel, killing the pilot
- The unauthorized flight caused a fire; 400 guests evacuated
- Queensland authorities are investigating the crash and theft reports
A pilot was killed when their helicopter crashed onto the roof of a hotel in Australia during an “unauthorised” early morning trip.
The aircraft collided with the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel in the northern Queensland city of Cairns at roughly 01:50 local time on Monday (16:50 BST Sunday), causing a fire and forcing hundreds of guests to evacuate.
Authorities said the helicopter’s sole occupant perished on the scene, and two hotel guests, a man in his 80s and a lady in her 70s, were rushed to the hospital in stable condition.
Some local media sources claim that the chopper was taken.
Nautilus Aviation, which owned the helicopter, stated that it would cooperate with the Queensland authorities while they investigated the “unauthorised use of one of our helicopters in the early hours of this morning.”
Amanda Kay, who was staying at a hotel on Cairns’ main esplanade, reported seeing a helicopter flying “extra low” without lights in rainy weather.
“[It] has turned around and hit the building,” she claimed, adding that the plane “blew up”.
Another bystander reported seeing the helicopter fly past the hotel twice in the seconds preceding the incident.
“That aircraft was moving really fast. “Unbelievable,” a woman shouted in a video of the fiery aftermath of the incident.
“It was just going out of control, that thing was.”
According to the Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS), two of the helicopter’s rotor blades broke off on impact and landed on the esplanade and in the hotel pool.
“There’s been reports it sounded like a bomb, and [that after] seeing smoke and fire from that, a lot of the occupants of the hotel were very unsure about the situation.”
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Another visitor to the hotel, Alastair Salmon, reported it to ABC as “a colossal ear-deafening bang.”
Mr Salmon, from London, was one of approximately 400 people who were evacuated from the hotel.
He recalled spotting the helicopter’s rotor blade on the ground close and mistaking it for a lamppost.
“Then we looked up there and you could see this massive hole in the window of the building,” he told the television network ABC.
Police closed off the streets surrounding the hotel and declared an emergency.
Queensland Police and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau are still investigating the crash.
Cairns, in northern Queensland, is a famous tourist destination because of its proximity to the Great Barrier Reef.
