An Ethiopian Airlines plane flying from Khartoum in Sudan to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa missed its landing on August 15 after both the pilots fell asleep, reported Aviation Herald.
According to the report, the pilots were meant to begin the flight’s descent to Addis Ababa’s Bole airport. However, the radar data indicates that they overshot their destination. An alert was issued after the flight did not start to descend.
The Air Traffic Control (ATC) alerted the crew and tried contacting the pilots several times but failed. When the plane flew over the runway, the autopilot disconnected and an alarm was triggered which reportedly woke up the crew. According to the ATC data, the aircraft continued to cruise at 37,000 feet before overflying the runway. Meanwhile, the pilots then maneouvered the aircraft for about 25 minutes for a safe landing on runway 25L, the report added.
The report further stated that the aircraft remained on the ground for about 2.5 hours before departing for its next flight.
Aviation expert Alex Macheras took to Twitter and said the incident was "deeply concerning".
“Deeply concerning incident at Africa’s largest airline – Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 ET343 was still at cruising altitude of 37,000 ft by the time it reached destination Addis Ababa. Why hadn’t it started to descend for landing? Both pilots were asleep," he wrote.
"Pilot fatigue is nothing new, and continues to pose one of the most significant threats to air safety - internationally," he added.
