An eight-year-old girl has died in a hotel swimming pool, with her body being found 20 feet deep into a one-foot wide pipe.
Aliyah Jaico and her family were staying at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Houston Brookhollow, Texas, when the tragic incident occurred on Saturday 23 March.
The girl was first reported missing 5.45pm after her family were unable to locate her on the premises following a swim in a lazy river style pool.
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Founder of Texas EquuSearch, Tim Miller and his team were called to the chain hotel, but were left battled after Aliyah seemed to have disappeared into thin air.
Speaking to ABC13 Houston, he asked: "Did she wander off? Did somebody take her, or what? So, anyhow, we mobilized a lot of people.
"We had people actually searching outside and in different rooms and everything."
Houston Fire Department then proceeded to inspect four of the pool's pipes - each of which were roughly one foot wide - but were initially unable to find Aliyah.
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Police spokesperson John Cannon told press that his team proceeded to comb through the hotel, while Miller's search and rescue nonprofit organisation scoured through the hotel's security footage.
The harrowing footage saw that Aliyah had disappeared under the water and hadn't resurfaced.
The pool was subsequently drained and a small remote camera - provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice - was attached to a pole and sent 20 feet into the pipes.
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With the assistance of a scent-tracking blood hound, at around 11.30pm that evening, the rescue team made the harrowing discovery.
Miller told press that Aliyah's 'little hand and part of her body' were the first to emerge on camera, with it appearing as though she'd been sucked into a wedged deep into the pipe.
Houston police are still awaiting autopsy results. Her preliminary cause of death is noted as 'drowning and mechanical asphyxia', according to the Harris County Institute of Forensic Science.
The pool has since been closed and will remain so 'until all violations are corrected and pool passes reinspection', according to a Houston Health Department inspection report.
Among the several violations listed in the report were that the 32-inch channel drains on the walls of the small pool did not include a document verifying the function of the drains.
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Officials from the Houston Health Department have since declared that the pool was last inspected in June 2023.
Aliyah's body - which was identified on Monday by the Harris County Medical Examiner’s office - was then retrieved from the pipe by the city's Fire Department.
Miller admitted: "Many of us had to wipe tears from our eyes. I never, ever thought in a million years it was going to end up as bad as it ended up.
"There is a grieving family out there, and it is going to be a long, painful healing process over this one."
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A Hilton hotels spokesperson told Tyla: "Hilton offers our sincere condolences to the family and loved ones in the tragic loss of a young girl at the DoubleTree by Hilton Houston Brookhollow.
"This property is independently owned and operated by a third party. Hilton does not own, manage, or control the day-to-day operations of the property and does not employ any of the property’s staff or its third-party operators."
Tyla has contacted the legal representatives of DoubleTree by Hilton in Houston Brookhollow for a comment.
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