A pilot has been reported dead after a helicopter crashed into the roof of a hotel in Cairns, a city in northern Queensland, Australia.
Eko Hot Blog reported that the accident occurred at around 01:50 am local time on Monday (16:50 Sunday GMT), when the aircraft struck the DoubleTree by the Hilton hotel, igniting a fire and prompting the evacuation of hundreds of guests.
Authorities confirmed that the pilot, who was the sole occupant of the helicopter, died at the scene.
Two hotel guests, a man in his 80s and a woman in her 70s, were taken to the hospital, where they were reported to be in stable condition.
Queensland Police, along with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, have launched an investigation into the crash. The helicopter’s charter company, Nautilus Aviation, revealed that the flight was unauthorized.
Amanda Kay, a guest at the hotel, recounted seeing the helicopter flying unusually low and without lights in rainy conditions.
“[It] has turned round and hit the building,” she said, noting that the aircraft then “blew up.”
Another witness reported seeing the helicopter circling the hotel twice before the crash. “Boy, that was going fast, that helicopter. Unbelievable,” she remarked.
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“It was just going out of control, that thing was,” she added.
The impact caused two of the helicopter’s rotor blades to detach, one landing on the hotel’s esplanade and another in the pool, according to the Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS).
“There’s been reports it sounded like a bomb, and [after seeing] smoke and fire from that, a lot of the occupants of the hotel were very unsure about the situation,” QAS spokeswoman Caitlin Dennings said.
Alastair Salmon, a tourist from London staying at the hotel, described the crash as a “colossal ear-deafening bang.” Salmon, who was among the 400 people evacuated, initially mistook the helicopter’s rotor blade for a lamppost. “Then we looked up there and you could see this massive hole in the window of the building,” he stated.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is dispatching investigators to the site to determine the cause of the crash.
Nautilus Aviation stated it would fully cooperate with the authorities as they investigate the “unauthorized use of one of our helicopters in the early hours of this morning.”
The hotel’s area has been cordoned off, and police have declared an emergency. Cairns, a city known for its proximity to the Great Barrier Reef, is a popular tourist destination in northern Queensland.
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