Pilots fall asleep mid-flight, miss landing by 25 minutes

Two pilots from an Ethiopian Airline fell asleep during their flight from Khartoum to Addis Ababa, fell asleep flying at 37,000 feet and the flight missed its landing on the runway designated for it.

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

The Air Traffic Control (ATC) tried to contact the pilots multiple times but got no response. The pilots woke up after 25 minutes after missing the designated time for landing. The autopilot kept the flight in the air while the pilots took their naps.

The crew then manoeuvred the aircraft for a safe landing on runway 25L about 25 minutes after overflying the runway at FL370.

Aviation analyst Alex Macheras in a series of tweets blamed flyer fatigue for the incident and said that the incident was deeply concerning.

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“Deeply concerning the 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.