A helicopter crashed into the roof of a Hilton hotel in Cairns, northern Australia on Monday, killing its pilot and sparking a mass evacuation, police said.
“The pilot and sole passenger on board the aircraft have been located and pronounced dead and forensic evaluations are underway to properly identify him,” the police said in a press release.
Emergency services said one of the helicopter’s blades fell into the hotel swimming pool, and two injured people were reported to have been transferred to hospital in a stable condition.
Another propeller fell on the esplanade in front of the building, local emergency manager Caitlin Denning told reporters.
According to police, no one on the ground was injured.
Hundreds of guests were evacuated from the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in Cairns after the midnight crash at around 1:50 a.m. local time (11:50 a.m. Sunday in Quebec).
Investigators from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau were sent to the scene.
Video clips on social media showed flames shooting from the roof of the hotel while sirens wailed.
“I’m shaking. People lived there. [L’appareil] Crashed into it,” a woman says in one of the videos.
The city of Cairns in the tropical north of Queensland is a popular tourist destination and gateway to the Great Barrier Reef.
