Two Ethiopian Airlines pilots fell asleep while flying from Khartoum in Sudan to Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, causing them to miss their landing.
According to the Aviation Herald, the incident happened on Monday. When flight ET343 approached the airport but did not land, the Air Traffic Control (ATC) issued an alert.
It was later revealed that both the pilots had fallen asleep at an altitude of 37,000 feet. With the help of the Boeing 737’s autopilot system, the plane continued to fly till then. ATC tried to contact the pilots several times but received no response.
In fact, when the plane went above the runway where it was supposed to land, the autopilot got disconnected. Due to this an alarm sounded, due to which the pilots woke up. After this, they swung the plane around to land on the runway after 25 minutes. However, no one was hurt and the plane landed safely.
Pilots fell asleep due to fatigue
Aviation analyst Alex Macheras also posted about the incident on Twitter. He 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.
Macheras said pilot fatigue is a chronic problem and a significant problem for air safety internationally. At the same time, the Pilots Association criticized the aviation industry’s inability to understand pilot fatigue and compared it to handing over car keys to a drunk driver.
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