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Investigators are looking into the crash of a Robinson R44 helicopter into a Cairns hotel early Monday morning following an ‘unauthorised’ flight.
Nautilus Aviation, which owned the helicopter that hit the roof of the DoubleTree hotel on the Cairns Esplanade at around 1:50am, said the flight was “unauthorised” and that it is working with authorities including Queensland Police and the ATSB to investigate the matter.
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The pilot of the R44 was killed, with an elderly couple in a nearby room taken to hospital with minor injuries. Around 300-400 people were forced to evacuate the hotel, with an exclusion zone subsequently set up around the crash site.
Media reports indicated that the helicopter flew for around four minutes after taking off from Cairns Airport before hitting the building.
Nautilus CEO Aaron Finn told The Australian that all of its pilots were “safe and accounted for”, but could not rule out another employee having been responsible.
“We have quite a lot of staff in the organisation. We can’t identify [the person involved] from CCTV footage, it’s very dark,” he said.
In a statement, the ATSB said it has dispatched a team of three transport safety investigators from its Brisbane office with “experience in aircraft operations and maintenance” to begin collecting evidence.
“The ATSB notes the flight has been described as ‘unauthorised’. The ATSB conducts ‘no blame’ transport safety investigations, and does not investigate for the purposes of taking administrative, regulatory or criminal action,” the statement read.
“Over the coming days we will seek to determine if this accident was a transport safety matter.
“If the accident is determined not to be a transport safety matter the ATSB may elect to discontinue its investigation, on the basis that an ATSB investigation would be unlikely to determine new safety learnings and issues, and leave further investigation efforts to the police and other appropriate agencies.
“The ATSB asks anyone who may have witnessed or has photos or video footage of the aircraft during any phase of the flight (up to the impact), or heard the helicopter prior to the impact, to make contact via the witness form on our website: atsb.gov.au/witness
Cairns Airport CEO Richard Barker has confirmed the airport is also helping authorities with their investigation.
“Cairns Airport operates under an approved multi-layered transport security program. We have conducted a review this morning and initial findings show there has been no compromise of the airport security program or processes,” he said in a statement.
“Our thoughts are with all affected by this distressing incident.”
