Pilots Fall Asleep While Flying at 37,000 Feet, Wake Up 25 Mins Later to Land Flight After Missing Scheduled Landing

ATC tried to contact the crew numerous times without success. The pilots woke up from the sound of disconnect wailer that rang loudly after the autopilot disconnected.

New Delhi: Two Ethiopian Airlines pilots, manning a flight from Sudan’s Khartoum to Ethiopia capital Addis Ababa, fell asleep while flying at 37,000 feet, according to Aviation Herald. The incident was reported on Monday. The pilots fell asleep while flight ET343 was on autopilot and was continuing in accordance with the route set up by the Flight Management Computer (FMC). The Air Traffic Control (ATC) raised an alert after aircraft approached the airport missed their landing on the runway designated for it.

ATC tried to contact the crew numerous times without success. The pilots woke up from the sound of disconnect wailer that rang loudly after the autopilot disconnected. The crew then maneouvered the aircraft for a safe landing on runway 25L about 25 minutes after overflying the runway at FL370.

As per the report, the aircraft remained on the ground for about 2.5 hours before departing for its next flight.

Reacting to the incident, the aviation analyst Alex Macheras in a series of tweets observed that the incident was deeply concerning and blamed pilot fatigue for the incident.

“Deeply concerning incident at Africa’s largest airline — Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 #ET343 was still at cruising altitude of 37,000ft by the time it reached its destination Addis Ababa. Why hadn’t it started to descend for landing? Both pilots were asleep,” he tweeted.

Deeply concerning incident at Africa’s largest airline — Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 #ET343 was still at cruising altitude of 37,000ft by the time it reached destination Addis Ababa

Why hadn’t it started to descend for landing? Both pilots were asleep. https://t.co/cPPMsVHIJD pic.twitter.com/RpnxsdtRBf

— Alex Macheras (@AlexInAir) August 18, 2022

Macheras then went on to point out that pilot fatigue is an old problem that is threatening air safety internationally. “Pilot fatigue is nothing new, and continues to pose one of the most significant threats to air safety – internationally,” he added.

Pilot fatigue is nothing new, and continues to pose one of the most significant threats to air safety – internationally.

Just last week, pilots publicly criticised UK leisure airline Jet2 for “refusing to recognise concerns about pilot fatigue” https://t.co/9nXP1QVnse

— Alex Macheras (@AlexInAir) August 18, 2022

A similar incident was reported earlier in May when two pilots fell asleep on flight from New York to Rome as plane travelled 38,000 feet above ground. An investigation was carried out by the aviation regulator, which confirmed that both the pilots of ITA Airways were sleeping as their Airbus 330 flew over France.