A helicopter crashed into a hotel roof and blew up in Australia’s Queensland on Monday, killing the pilot. The incident occurred at the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel around 1.50 am (local time) in northern Queensland's Cairns. Hundreds of hotel guests were evacuated after the crash, which sparked a fire on the roof.
According to the BBC, Queensland Police confirmed that the sole occupant of the helicopter, the pilot, died at the scene. The charter company reportedly said the pilot was on an “unauthorised” flight. Cairns Esplanade, where the hotel is located, is a no-fly zone, Australian Broadcasting Corporation News reported.
A hotel guest, Amanda Kay, recalled seeing the helicopter flying “extremely low” without lights in rainy weather. She said the aircraft turned around and hit the hotel, adding that it “blew up”.
Upon impact, two of the rotor blades of the helicopter came off. While one landed in the pool of the hotel, the other was found on the promenade, Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) said, as quoted by BBC.
QAS senior operations supervisor for the Far Northern Region Caitlin Dennings told the media that the crash sounded like a bomb, and after seeing the smoke and fire, many hotel occupants “were unsure of the situation”.
The building was evacuated as a precaution, although nobody was injured. Two hotel guests, a man in his 80s and a woman in her 70s, were taken to hospital in a stable condition, the state's ambulance service said.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said it would send investigators to the scene. The charter company, Nautilus Aviation, vowed to work closely with all the authorities in Queensland as they examined the "unauthorised use of one of our helicopters in the early hours of this morning", ABC News reported.
After the crash, the streets around the hotel were cordoned off, and the police declared it an emergency situation, BBC reported.
The tourist town of Cairns is considered to be the gateway to Australia's Great Barrier Reef.