BBC: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A pilot has died after their helicopter crashed into the roof of a hotel in the northern Queensland city of Cairns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The aircraft hit the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel at around 01:50am local time on Monday (16:50B Sunday), sparking a fire and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of guests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Authorities say the only occupant of the helicopter died at the scene, and two hotel guests – a man in his 80s and a woman in her 70s \u2013 were taken to hospital in a stable condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Queensland Police and the aviation safety watchdog are investigating the circumstances of the crash, with the company who charters the helicopter saying it was on an “unauthorised” flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amanda Kay, who was staying in the hotel on the main esplanade in Cairns, described seeing a helicopter flying “extra low”, without lights in rainy weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“[It] has turned round and hit the building,” she said, adding that the aircraft “blew up”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another bystander said she saw the helicopter fly past the hotel twice in the moments before the collision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Boy that was going fast, that helicopter. Unbelievable,” a woman said, in video showing the fiery aftermath of the crash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It was just going out of control, that thing was.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two of the helicopter’s rotor blades came off on impact, landing on the esplanade and in the hotel pool, according to Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There\u2019s 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,” spokeswoman Caitlin Dennings told media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another tourist staying at the hotel, Alastair Salmon, described it to the ABC as “a colossal ear-deafening bang”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Salmon, from London, was among about 400 people who were evacuated from the hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He described seeing the helicopter’s rotor blade on the ground nearby, and mistaking it for a lamppost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Then we looked up there and you could see this massive hole in the window of the building,” he told the ABC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said it is sending investigators to the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a statement, Nautilus Aviation said it would work closely with all authorities in Queensland as they examined the “unauthorised use of one of our helicopters in the early hours of this morning”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Streets around the hotel have been cordoned off and an emergency situation was declared by police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Located in northern Queensland, the city of Cairns is a popular tourist destination due to its proximity to the Great Barrier Reef.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BBC: A pilot has died after their helicopter crashed into the roof of a hotel in the northern Queensland city of Cairns. The aircraft hit the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel at around 01:50am local time on Monday (16:50B Sunday), sparking a fire and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of guests. Authorities say the only occupant of the helicopter died at the scene, and two hotel guests – a man in his 80s and a woman in her 70s \u2013 were taken to hospital in a stable condition. Queensland Police and the aviation safety watchdog are investigating the circumstances of the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41361,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41362,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41360\/revisions\/41362"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}