Pilots from Ethiopian Airlines aircraft fell asleep in the air and skipped landing in the capital of Ethiopia Addis Ababa, the commercial news website Aviation Herald reported Thursday night. The pilot was then suspended while waiting for an investigation, according to the Bloomberg news agency. The incident was reported to have occurred on Monday when the aircraft from Khartoum Sudan and should have landed at Bole Airport in Addis Ababa.
According to Aviation Herald, Air Traffic Control (ATC) raised a warning when the largest operator’s flight in Africa approached the airport but did not make a landing. The aircraft was in autopilot mode which made him sail at 37,000 feet. ATC tried to contact the ET343 flight pilot several times but could not reach them, said the largest airline in Africa in a statement.
“When the plane was too much runway where it was supposed to land, the autopilot was cut off. It triggered alarm, which woke up the pilot, “the news portal reported. They were then reportedly carrying out aircraft maneuvers around to land on the runway 25 minutes later, further outlets said, but the plane landed safely.
After landing, the plane remained on the ground for about 2.5 hours before leaving for the next flight, the report added.
The ADS-B flight surveillance system confirmed the incident and posted a photo of the aircraft flight path, which showed loops like unlimited near Addis Ababa airport. Ethiopian Airlines did not immediately respond to requests for comments on reports by Bloomberg. Earlier this year, a similar incident occurred when two pilots fell asleep in the air flight from New York to Rome.
While the exact cause behind the latest incident is not known also not commenting on this problem, one of the reasons behind it can be exhausted by pilots, flight experts said. “Pilot fatigue is not new, and continues to lead to one of the most significant threats to air safety, internationally. Only last week, the pilot public criticized the Jet2 airline in the UK because it refused to recognize concerns about the fatigue of the pilot, “flight analyst Alex Macheras in a Twitter post on Thursday, said the latest incident” was very alarming “
