A sea world trainer has been killed when a whale has launched a deadly attack on trainer after she slipped and fell into its tank.

The 40 years old sea world trainer Dawn Brancheau was in a “whale holding area” when she slipped and was killed at Shamu stadium in Orlando.

“We have never in the history of our parks experienced an incident like this and all of our standing operating procedures will come under review as part of this investigation,” Dan Brown, the park’s general manager, said.

Witness Victoria Biniak described the attack to local station WKMG, saying Brancheau had just finished telling the audience about the show they were about to witness when the whale struck. The whale, named Tilikum, has been previously involved in two fatal incidents.

“The trainer was explaining different things about the whale … and then the trainer that was down there walked away from the window … and then Telly (the whale) took off really fast in the tank and he came back, shot up in the air, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started thrashing (her) around,” Ms Biniak said.