Helicopter crashes into hotel roof in Australian resort town, killing pilot
A helicopter crashed into the roof of a hotel in the popular northern Australian tourist town of Cairns, killing the pilot and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of guests early Monday (August 12) morning.
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Transcript
00:00A helicopter crashed into the roof of a hotel in the popular northern Australian tourist
00:07town of Cairns, killing the pilot and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of guests.
00:13Authorities said emergency crews were called at about 2am on Monday after a twin-engine
00:18helicopter collided with the hotel roof, causing a fire on top of the building and triggering
00:24evacuations.
00:25Yeah, it was about 2am in the morning, we just heard a bit of a swirling noise like
00:30a big whirlwind and that was Longyearbyen, I actually thought I was dreaming.
00:35And then about two seconds later there was like a very loud bang, a couple of bangs actually,
00:40the room started rattling and the doors and everything and yeah, I quickly ran to the
00:45kids, they were up screaming and yelling, what was that, I thought we were under attack
00:48or something.
00:50And yeah, we just walked out of the apartment and we saw there were some flames up above
00:55just the hotel across the road, about 10 metres away and yeah, we were just asked to evacuate
01:00the building.
01:02Police said forensic investigations were underway to formally identify the pilot.
01:07He was declared dead at the scene.
01:09So just before 2am, QAS was called to report that the hotel was on fire after a helicopter
01:14had crashed into it.
01:16We had multiple crews attend.
01:18Once the scene was deemed safe, our crews were able to assess those impacted.
01:24Sadly, one patient was found to be deceased and two were transported to Cairns Hospital
01:29in a stable condition.
01:30The crash occurred at Hilton's Double Tree Hotel in the city of Cairns, a major gateway
01:35to Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
01:38Two of the helicopter's rotor blades came off and one landed in the hotel pool.