A man who died when the helicopter he was piloting crashed into the roof of a hotel in Queensland, Australia, was an employee of the aviation company that owned the plane, but he did not work as a pilot and had not flown in Australia before.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A man who died when the helicopter he was piloting crashed into the roof of a hotel in Australia was an employee of the aviation company that owned the plane, but he did not work as a pilot and had not flown in Australia before, the company said Tuesday.
Nautilus Aviation said in a statement that he was a member of its ground team and that, although he had a helicopter pilot’s license in New Zealand, he was not authorized to fly the company’s helicopters. The man’s name was not made public.
About 400 people were evacuated from the DoubleTree Hilton in the far north Queensland city of Cairns on Monday morning when the helicopter crashed into the roof and burst into flames.
Two hotel guests were briefly hospitalized for smoke inhalation. No one else on the ground was injured.
Authorities were investigating how the helicopter was able to take off from Cairns airport and the man’s motive for making the flight, they said in Cairns on Monday. Queensland Police Service Acting Chief Superintendent Shane Holmes said they believed the crash was an isolated incident and there was no ongoing threat to public safety.
The man had worked at Nautilus Aviation for four months and had recently been promoted to a ground staff position at another of the company’s bases, the company said. Before the accident, the man had attended a social event with colleagues to mark his departure to the new position, he said.
The flight was unauthorized and the helicopter was “improper,” the company added.
Cairns Airport chief executive Richard Barker said in a statement on Tuesday that a review showed “no compromise of our airport fencing or access points”.
The airport was operating under “a multi-tiered transportation security program approved by the federal government,” Barker said.
The accident occurred in a busy tourist district of Cairns, a tropical city of 150,000 people where it is currently peak season for tourists.
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