Cairns helicopter crash pilot identified as 23yo New Zealand man Blake Wilson

It's been confirmed the pilot killed in a chopper crash in Cairns was a New Zealand man who had not flown in Australia before.

Transcript

00:0023-year-old Blake Wilson actually only came to Australia just a few months ago, earlier

00:06this year.

00:07He'd been a pilot in New Zealand, he had a New Zealand helicopter pilot's licence, but

00:12was employed at Nautilus Aviation here in Cairns as a member of its ground crew, and

00:17the company says that he wasn't employed as a pilot here and wasn't authorised to fly

00:22its helicopters.

00:23In a bit of a twist, the company's confirmed he was actually celebrating a promotion earlier

00:27that night with some colleagues, not at an official company party, but just at a private

00:32gathering with some friends.

00:34He was due to move to a new job, still as a ground crew member at one of its other bases.

00:39For reasons authorities still don't know, it appears he's then gone to the general aviation

00:44side of Cairns Airport, to the Nautilus Aviation hangar, and taken one of its helicopters unauthorised,

00:50flown for a few minutes here to the Cairns CBD, where he's crashed into the Doubletree

00:55by Hilton Hotel just before two o'clock on Monday morning.

00:59That's the building behind me.

01:02Still not known exactly where he was heading or the purpose of that flight, but Nautilus

01:06Aviation has cooperated with the investigations.

01:10The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has collected parts of the wreckage that it needs

01:14to try and piece together the circumstances surrounding the flight.

01:18They've taken some equipment back to Canberra, they're hoping they may be able to even glean

01:23things like audio recordings, if that equipment from the helicopter is intact, and if it was

01:28operational at the time.

01:30They'll also interview witnesses, people who may have seen the helicopter flying in this

01:34area along the Cairns Esplanade in that time before two o'clock.

01:39The police and aviation authorities, meanwhile, will look at security.

01:43There's been suggestions from experts that this might need to lead to a beefing up of

01:48security at general aviation airports around Australia.

01:52Some have suggested that there's no reason why a ground crew worker should have access

01:56to aircraft after hours, particularly if they're not authorized to fly, and those investigations

02:02are expected to take some weeks before a preliminary report is released.