According to reports, both Ethiopian Airlines pilots fall asleep on flight and the plan miss the landing. The incident happened on Monday while the plane was in the route from Khartoum, the city of Sudan, to Bole Airport in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.
The route of aircraft ET343 as seen by Flightradar24 over Addis Abeba. The autopilot disconnected as the aircraft crossed the runway, setting off an alert that eventually awakened up the pilots. Eventually, this caused them to turn the aircraft around.
According to a story published on the commercial aviation news website Aviation Herald, the pilots of an Ethiopian Airlines plane dozed off in midair. They failed to make the successful landing in Addis Abeba, the capital of Ethiopia.
As per the news agency Bloomberg, the pilots were suspended until an inquiry was conducted. This shocking incident happened on Monday as the plane was about to take off from Sudan’s Khartoum and they suppose to land at Bole Airport in Addis Ababa.
According to Aviation Herald, as the Aeroplan operated by Africa’s largest carrier approach the airport for the landing. But did not complete the landing and Air Traffic Control (ATC) also raise an alarm for the same.
The aircraft was flying high in the space maintaining a 37,000-foot altitude.
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However, its mentioned in a statement from the largest airline in Africa that the Air Traffic Control (ATC) made repeated attempts to get in touch with the ET343’s pilots but was unsuccessful.
“The autopilot disconnect when the aircraft crossed the runway where it was intended to land. That set off an alert, which woke up the pilots, according to the news report.
25 minutes later, they reportedly swung the aircraft around for landing, but the plan landed safely, the site inform.
However, after the safe landing, the plane stayed there for around 2.5 hours before taking off for its next journey, the report further said.
The incident was reported by the ADS-B aviation surveillance system. Which also publish a picture of the aircraft’s flight route, that depicts an infinity-like loop close to the airport of Addis Abeba.
A request for comment on the Bloomberg article was not quickly answered by Ethiopian Airlines.
This is not the first issue, when pilot sleep in the plain. But a similar incident happened earlier this year when two pilots on a flight from New York to Rome fall asleep in midair.
However, the exact issue behind the recent incident (Ethiopian Airlines pilots fall asleep on flight) is unknown.
And the airline made no comments on the topic as well. The aviation experts suggested that fatigue of the pilot may have played a role in this incident.
As per the CEO of Guide4info, pilot fatigue can be one of the biggest hazards to global aviation safety. Well, “Pilot tiredness is nothing new. According to aviation expert Alex Macheras, Pilots openly criticized UK leisure carrier Jet2 last week for failing to acknowledge pilot tiredness concerns. Who inform that this is the most recent issue and “very alarming” in a Thursday Twitter post.
The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association or SWAPA, told airline executives in a letter back in April that Fatigue has become Southwest Airlines’ number-one safety threat”.
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