‘A colossal ear-deafening bang’: Pilot killed after stolen helicopter crashes into Cairns hotel

A helicopter that crashed into a waterfront hotel in Cairns, killing the pilot, was stolen from an airport and on an “unauthorised” flight, authorities say.

Hundreds of people were evacuated from the Double Tree by Hilton hotel on the Esplanade in the north Queensland town after the Robinson R44 helicopter crashed into the roof and burst into flames about 1.50am on Monday.

The pilot – who is yet to be identified – was a man in his 40s, Nine News reported.

Two hotel guests – an 83-year-old man and a 76-year-old woman – who were asleep when the helicopter slammed into the roof above them were taken to hospital. They were not seriously injured, but highly distressed, said Queensland Ambulance senior operations supervisor Joanne Selby.

Work began this evening to remove the destroyed aircraft from the roof of the Hilton, after it was earlier stolen from a general aviation hangar at Cairns Airport, less than four kilometres north of the hotel.

Charter company Nautilus Aviation released a statement saying the use of their helicopter was “unauthorised”.

“Certainly, the reporting we’ve got at the moment is that may have been the case,” Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Angus Mitchell said.

By Monday afternoon, police had preliminary information about the identity of the pilot, who was found dead at the scene, Acting Chief Superintendent Shane Holmes said, but little information about why he was in the air on an unscheduled flight.

Holmes said the helicopter “wasn’t in the air for a great deal of time”, having taken off from the hangar at Cairns Airport.

“The aircraft was moved from a general aviation hangar early this morning and it was an unauthorised flight,” he said.

“We are working with the local aviation operators to determine the circumstances leading up to before the aircraft went into the air.”

Angus Mitchell from the ATSB said “visibility was down at the time” and it was possibly raining when the helicopter was in the air.

“We want to understand what the helicopter was equipped with and also potentially what the helicopter was doing at the time and [the] nature of the flight,” he said.

“It’s certainly very difficult to fly a helicopter if you’re not a pilot. Until the identity of the individual has been confirmed, we don’t know the experience level, but it is certainly a very difficult thing to do if you haven’t got experience flying.”

Eyewitness Veronica Knight described how the helicopter flew around “really fast” before hitting the hotel, creating a “massive explosion”.

“It was like a fuel tank exploding,” Knight, a tourist from Sydney, said.

Knight said she saw the helicopter fly around for about 15 minutes, twice going past her “really fast”. She added that it flew away from the hotel before circling back at “full force and full speed”.

“It came back real fast then went into the hotel. I was very scared,” she said.

“It was like an army helicopter, but faster. Like a warplane, like it was going to come in and bomb you.”

Two of the helicopter’s rotor blades came off and were found on the Esplanade and in the hotel pool, although no one on the ground was injured.

“We saw the rotor on the ground. I wasn’t far away. It could have got me,” Knight said.

Hotel guest Alastair Salmon, who was staying on the third floor, told the ABC he woke up to “a colossal, ear-deafening bang”.

His roommate, Harry Holberton, likened it to a bomb going off.

“All over the hotel, there was debris, parts of a windscreen,” Holberton told the ABC.

Speaking from Brisbane, Queensland Premier Steven Miles described the crash as “terrifying”.

“I’ve slept in that hotel there in Cairns before. I can’t imagine how scary it would be to be asleep and to hear that bang and to have to be evacuated,” Miles said.

Caitlin Denning, Queensland Ambulance senior operations supervisor, said between 300 and 400 people were being evacuated from the hotel as crews arrived at the scene.

“The helicopter impacted the roof of the hotel; however, two propellers have dislodged,” she said.

“One landed on the Cairns Esplanade, and there was a second propeller located in the hotel pool on the bottom floor, and it was on fire.”

ATSB investigators from Brisbane flew to Cairns on Monday to work alongside Queensland Police’s Forensic Crash Unit.

The ATSB is urging anyone who may have witnessed, or has photos or video footage, of the crash to make contact via the witness form on its website, atsb.gov.au/witness.

with AAP