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Helicopter Crashes into Hotel Roof in Australian Resort Town, Killing Pilot

A video grab of the crash was captured by a social media user - viral photo via Twitter/BenPennings
A video grab of the crash was captured by a social media user - viral photo via Twitter/BenPennings
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Helicopter Crashes into Hotel Roof in Australian Resort Town, Killing Pilot

A video grab of the crash was captured by a social media user - viral photo via Twitter/BenPennings
A video grab of the crash was captured by a social media user - viral photo via Twitter/BenPennings

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, authorities said on Monday.

Emergency crews were called at about 2 a.m. on Monday (1600 GMT on Sunday) after a twin-engine helicopter collided with the hotel roof, causing a fire on top of the building and triggering evacuations, Queensland state police said in a statement, Reuters reported.

Police said forensic investigations were underway to formally identify the pilot. He was declared dead at the scene.

"There were no injuries sustained by people on the ground," the police statement said.

The crash occurred at Hilton's Double Tree Hotel in the city of Cairns, a major gateway to Australia's Great Barrier Reef, Australian media reported.

Two of the helicopter's rotor blades came off and one landed in the hotel pool, media reports said.

The forensic crash unit will work with Australia's transport safety regulator to prepare an accident report, police said.

 

 

 

 

 

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Air Taxis Failed to Get Certified for the Paris Olympics

A Volocity air taxi flies during a demonstration flight at Paris Bourget Airport on June 20, 2023. (Photo by Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT / AFP)
A Volocity air taxi flies during a demonstration flight at Paris Bourget Airport on June 20, 2023. (Photo by Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT / AFP)
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Air Taxis Failed to Get Certified for the Paris Olympics

A Volocity air taxi flies during a demonstration flight at Paris Bourget Airport on June 20, 2023. (Photo by Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT / AFP)
A Volocity air taxi flies during a demonstration flight at Paris Bourget Airport on June 20, 2023. (Photo by Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT / AFP)

It was a tantalizing vision: autonomous flying taxis zipping spectators around the Paris Olympics, their electric engines humming softly over the cityscape, ushering in a new era in public transport.

Certification delays dashed that dream. But the backers of the Volocopter aircraft that was meant to ferry Olympic fans aren’t giving up. They carried out a test flight Sunday, marking the last day of the 2024 Olympics with a sunrise demonstration over the resplendent grounds of the Versailles palace, The AP reported.

The craft carried baggage, but no people, when it took off from the gardens of Versailles, from where the first hot-air balloon took flight in 1783.

The Paris region had planned for a small fleet of pilot-less air taxis for the Olympics, operated by Germany’s Volocopter and the Paris airport authority ADP.

Five Olympic routes were planned, including one landing on a platform on the Seine River -- and Volocopter CEO Dirk Hoke hoped that French President Emmanuel Macron would be his first passenger.

But ADP’s CEO Augustin de Romanet said Thursday that it had failed to win certification from Europe’s air safety agency in time for the Games.

Manufacturers of electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft — or eVTOL – remain confident that they’re a wave of the future. Companies around the world are trying to get their models authorized for flight.

Volocopter now hopes to get permission to carry passengers over Paris for the city’s next major event: the reopening of fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral in December.

And rivals are aiming to make the vision of Olympic spectators hopping around venues in autonomous flying machines a reality the next Summer Games — in Los Angeles in 2028.