Images and a video from the scene showed a bright plume of fire on the hotel’s roof.
“They just flew into that building,” a female voice said in one video shared on social media that captured the aftermath.
“Madness, man,” she added as sirens blared in the background. “Shivers. People were living in that. It smashed right in.”
‘Like a bomb’
Caitlin Denning, Queensland Ambulance supervisor, said the aircraft’s propellers had “dislodged”. “One landed on the Cairns Esplanade and there was a second propeller located in the hotel pool on the bottom floor and it was on fire,” she told local media.
“There were reports of it sounding like a bomb, and seeing the fire and smoke, a lot of the occupants of the hotel were unsure of the situation.”