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A helicopter crashed into the roof of a hotel in the popular tourist resort of Cairns in northern Australia. The pilot died and debris flew over the area.

The crash occurred around 2 a.m. Monday at the Double Tree Hotel, a Hilton chain, in Cairns, a major gateway to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

The twin-engine helicopter collided with the roof of the hotel, causing a fire and forcing hundreds of guests to be evacuated, Queensland Police said in a statement.

Police said forensic tests were currently being conducted to officially identify the pilot. He was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident.

The helicopter’s owner, Nautilus Aviation, said the aircraft was on an “unauthorised” flight at the time of the crash, adding that it was working closely with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and other authorities to investigate the incident.

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

“People lying on the ground were not injured,” the police statement said.

A forensic accident unit will work with the Australian Road Safety Authority to prepare an accident report, police said.

Between 300 and 400 people were evacuated from the hotel building and two of them, a man in his 80s and a woman in her 70s, were taken to hospital in stable condition.

“They were very stressed because the window in their room was broken,” said Jill Ball, who was staying at the hotel with her husband Robert at the time of the crash.

“I was lucky to be able to put my clothes on, but some poor people came out barefoot and in their pajamas,” she said. The Guardian. She said her hotel room was diagonally across from the crash site.

The couple could see flames after the collision, Ms Ball told the newspaper. They were initially told to wait in their room, but were soon told to evacuate.

“It was just such chaos. There was no communication, it was completely disorganized.”

She praised the bus driver of a tour group and told the newspaper that he drove the people to the evacuation point on police instructions.

“He was running back and forth and was really the only source of information we had… he was just such a hero, he was very kind and caring.”

Another guest, Amanda Kay, told BBC News she saw the helicopter flying “extra low” before it “turned around and hit the building.”

Another tourist, Alastair Salmon, described it to ABC as “a huge, deafening bang”.

Queensland Ambulance chief operating officer Caitlin Denning told the Australian Association Press it was “too unsafe for us to enter the hotel”.

Queensland Police had previously declared it a restricted area.