Pilots fall asleep while flying 37,000 feet above ground, miss landing

Two pilots of Ethiopian Airlines fell asleep while flying a plane from Sudan's Khartoum to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Monday. This incident occurred when the plane was cruising at a height of 37,000 feet. To add to the bizarre turn of events, the pilots missed landing their flight. According to Aviation Herald, when flight ET343 was approaching the airport but did not start its descent, the Air Traffic Control (ATC) raised an alert. The autopilot system of the Boeing 737 aircraft kept it cruising in the air while the pilots were asleep. The Aviation Herald also stated that the plane was on the ground for 2.5 hours before the departure for its next flight.

The ATC tried to contact the pilots several times but were not successful. The autopilot got disconnected when the plane overflew the runway where it had to land. An alarm got triggered due to this, which woke up the pilots, according to the outlet. Then, they navigated the aircraft around for landing on the runway 25 minutes later. Luckily, no one was harmed in this incident, and the plane landed safely.

Aviation analyst Alex Macheras also tweeted about the event, and called it “deeply concerning”. He also blamed pilot fatigue for it in the following post.

“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.”, wrote Alex Macheras in his twitter post.

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

He also posted an update stating that the pilots had been suspended. “Ethiopian Airlines has confirmed the Boeing 737 pilots have been suspended pending further investigation. A timely reminder that pilot fatigue is widespread, an issue across the airline spectrum, sometimes systematic, and poses a major threat to air safety.”, the aviation analyst updated on Twitter.

Update: Ethiopian Airlines has confirmed the Boeing 737 pilots have been suspended pending further investigation. A timely reminder that pilot fatigue is widespread, an issue across the airline spectrum, sometimes systematic, and poses a major threat to air safety. #aviation pic.twitter.com/8eb4bTAn3M — Alex Macheras (@AlexInAir) August 19, 2022

A similar incident occurred in May when two pilots of ITA Airways fell asleep while flying an Airbus 330 38,000 feet above the ground from New York to Rome.

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), data collected from 162 short-haul pilots revealed that 75 per cent of them face severe fatigue. Eighty-one per cent reported the fatigue to be worse than two years ago. For 80 percent of the pilots, their thought processes were reduced while flying.

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