The incident happened on Monday (August 15).
Two Ethiopian Airlines pilots fell asleep while flying from Khartoum in Sudan to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and missed their landing. The incident happened on Monday, according to Aviation Herald, which stated that Air Traffic Control (ATC) issued an alert when flight ET 343 approached the airport, but did not begin to land. When the pilots fell asleep, the Boeing 737’s autopilot system kept the plane cruising at 37,000 feet, the outlet continued. It further said that the aircraft remained on the ground for about 2.5 hours before departing for its next flight.
ATC tried several times to contact the pilots, but to no avail. When the plane crossed the runway where it was supposed to land, the autopilot disconnected. This raised the alarm, which woke the pilots up. Aviation Herald,
He then swung the plane around to land on the runway 25 minutes later, the outlet added.
Thankfully no one was hurt and the plane landed safely.
data from Aviation Surveillance System ADS-B Confirmed that the incident took place and the plane took off over the runway. It posted an image of the plane’s flight path, which shows an infinity-like loop near Addis Ababa airport.
Image posted by ADS-B shows the flight path of an Ethiopian Airlines plane.
aviation analyst alex maceras Twitter also posted about the incident, calling it “deeply concerning”. He also attributed this to the fatigue of the pilot.
A similar incident occurred in May when two pilots fell asleep on a flight from New York to Rome when the plane went 38,000 feet above the ground.
An investigation was conducted by the aviation regulator, which confirmed that both pilots of ITA Airways were asleep as their Airbus 330 took off over France.