The helicopter pilot who crashed a stolen aircraft into a waterfront hotel sparking a massive blaze and mass evacuation was awarded ’employee of the month’.
Daily Mail Australia revealed on Tuesday that New Zealander Blake Wilson, 23, was behind the controls of a R44 Robinson helicopter when it crashed into the roof of DoubleTree by Hilton in Cairns, Far North Queensland, at about 1.50am on Monday.
The ‘unauthorised’, four-minute flight took off from the Nautilus hangar at Cairns Airport shortly after 1.45am.
Witnesses reported seeing the aircraft flying at high speeds and dangerously low over the city’s Esplanade, which is a no-fly zone, before smashing into the hotel roof and bursting into flames.
Mr Wilson was killed in the crash, while a man, 83, and a woman, 76, were taken to hospital for smoke inhalation and up to 400 staff and guests were evacuated from the building.
The 23-year-old moved to Cairns from Palmerston North on New Zealand’s North Island in March and landed a job with the charter company a month later.
Although a fully qualified commercial pilot in New Zealand, Mr Wilson was not permitted to fly helicopters in Australia and was employed as part of Nautilus’ ground crew.
CEO of Nautilus Aviation Aaron Finn said he was ‘dumbfounded’ as Mr Wilson had been awarded employee of the month.
Blake Wilson, 23, was behind the controls of a stolen R44 Robinson helicopter when it crashed into the roof of a waterfront hotel
Mr Wilson’s ‘unauthorised’, four-minute flight ended when he crashed into the roof of DoubleTree by Hilton in Cairns sparking a massive blaze and mass evacuation
Mr Finn added the young worker had also earned himself a promotion and was set to start his new role as a refueller on Horn Island, above Australia’s Top End, on Monday.
‘He just won employee of the month on Friday, we can’t fault him as a person or an employee,’ Mr Finn told The Courier Mail.
‘So we’re all at a loss as to why this has happened, dumbfounded. I can’t sort of say too much more than that, apart from he was a model employee.’
Colleagues at the company held a farewell dinner and drinks for Mr Wilson on Sunday night, just hours before he embarked on the fatal flight.
Mr Finn explained the company ‘put some sausages out’ as part of a function on Thursday night for the employee of the month award.
He reiterated any celebrations on Sunday night were privately organised by staff members and were held at venues around the city and not at the company’s hangar as such gatherings were ever held or permitted at the grounds.
Mr Finn confirmed his employees had gone home by 8.30pm and that it was Mr Wilson’s ‘prerogative’ to stay out as he was not rostered to work on Monday.
‘It wasn’t a booze up, it wasn’t a huge night… if he wanted to stay out, that’s his prerogative… so for everyone to beat it up and say it was a big, boozy night, it’s incorrect,’ Mr Finn said.
One witness told media that Mr Wilson had been ‘intoxicated’ at the celebratory dinner and had to be put to bed.
It’s understood that at some point later in the night, he left his room and got behind the wheel of a Nautilus vehicle which he drove to the company’s headquarters at Cairns airport.
Mr Wilson was a fully qualified commercial pilot in New Zealand and moved to Cairns in March before landing a job with Nautilus Aviation as a ground crew worker
Aaron Finn (pictured), CEO of Nautilus, had awarded Mr Wilson ’employee of the month’ just days before the fatal crash
Mr Finn said the young employee ‘went unnoticed’ after spending about 45 minutes to an hour in the hangar before taking off in the chopper.
He added Mr Wilson gained access to the hangar by using a pin code, which was shared among all staff.
It’s understood Mr Wilson used a trolley jack to move the helicopter on to the tarmac.
The keys for the Robinson R44 were inside the helicopter, a practice Mr Finn said was common among operators.
Mr Wilson gained his private pilots licence Christchurch Helicopters in April 2022 and later becoming a fully qualified commercial pilot with the company in September that year.
He moved to Cairns with his girlfriend in March this year and had interviews with several different helicopter charter companies.
Despite his qualifications back home, he was not permitted to fly helicopters in Australia but had expressed his interest in doing so.
About four minutes into the flight, Mr Wilson slammed into the roof of the waterfront hotel at 1.50am on Monday, causing a massive fire on the roof and mass evacuation of up to 400 people.
An 83-year-old man and a 76-year-old woman were taken to Cairns Hospital in a stable condition after they were assessed by paramedics.
Footage captured by a tourist showed the roof engulfed by massive red and orange flames.
Huge clouds of black smoked billowed out from the top of the hotel as the blaze raged.
‘The whole building is on fire,’ one woman was heard saying as flames were seen inside the bottom floor of the hotel.
‘Did you see it? The helicopter… it’s just crazy. I was just walking along there… I saw it going down,’ she continued.
Debris from the helicopter was found up to 80 metres from where it crashed, with two of its rotor blades dislodging.
One of the blades was found in the hotel pool, located on the bottom floor, while the second landed on the Cairns Esplanade opposite the hotel.
Police confirmed Mr Wilson was the sole occupant of the helicopter and was declared dead at the scene.
Footage captured by a tourist showed the hotel roof engulfed in huge flames as black smoke clouds billowed into the air
Debris from the helicopter was found up to 80 metres from where it crashed, with two of its rotor blades dislodging (pictured, helicopter blade found on the Cairns Esplanade opposite the hotel)
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has launched an investigation, which will focus on the sequence of events that led to the crash.
ATSB chief commissioner Angus Mitchell said that investigators faced a difficult task of establishing exactly what happened due to the impact of the collision and the subsequent fire.
‘We’ll spend the next couple of days going through witness statements interviewing the operator and trying to build a better picture,’ Mr Mitchell told reporters on Tuesday.
‘What was the nature of this flight? And what was the flight path taken? And particularly, what were those final seconds of flight phase into the building?’
Investigators will scour the hours leading up to the flight, CCTV from the Esplanade, phone recordings of the actual incident, radar from the airport and any recording devices still in tact within the helicopter itself.
