Man who crashed helicopter in Australia attended party before taking off

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -

A man who died when the helicopter he was flying crashed onto a hotel roof in Australia was an employee of the aviation company that owned the aircraft, 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 crew and while he held a helicopter pilot's license in New Zealand, he was not authorized to fly the company's helicopters. The man's name was not released to the 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 onto the roof and burst into flames.

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Two hotel guests were briefly hospitalized for smoke inhalation. No one else on the ground was hurt.

Authorities were investigating how the helicopter was able to take off from Cairns Airport and the man's reason 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 public safety threat.

The man had worked at Nautilus Aviation for four months and had recently been promoted to a ground crew job at another of the company's bases, the company said. Before the crash, the man had attended a social event with colleagues to mark his departure to the new position, it said.

The flight was unauthorized and the helicopter "misappropriated," the company added.

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Cairns Airport CEO Richard Barker said in a statement Tuesday that a review showed "no compromise of our airport fence or access points."

The airport operated under "a federally approved, multi-layered transport security program," Barker said.

The crash happened in a busy tourist district of Cairns, a tropical city of 150,000 people where it is currently peak season for holidaymakers.

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