Two pilots are under investigation after falling asleep during a commercial flight and failing to wake up in time to descend.
The incident took place in Ethiopia where Flight ET343 from Khartoum to Addis Ababa was delayed after it was still 37,000 feet high when it arrived at its destination.
Aviation Herald has since revealed that Air Traffic Control tried to contact the two pilots flying the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 to no avail after the plane failed to begin descending.
It wasn’t until the aircraft’s autopilot was switched off that an alarm triggered and woke up the two pilots in the cockpit.
After the crew finally woke up, they immediately began the descent and the plane landed safely.
In a screengrab from the plane’s flight route, the aircraft can be seen missing the runway while cruising at 37,000 feet high.
That’s when the pilots, who were roused by the alarm, woke up and made a figure eight to slowly descend and re-approach the runway.
“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,” aviation expert Alex Macheras shared on Twitter.
“Why hadn’t it started to descend for landing? Both pilots were asleep.”
After the story went viral, plenty of people called for the two pilots to be sacked immediately.
“This is unprofessional and dangerous,” one person said.
“Hopefully both pilots got fired and the aviation authorities starting an investigation on the crew duty schedules etc of this airline! Thanks god that nothing bad happened,” another suggested.
Not everyone, however, was quick to pass the blame on the pilots with some people suggesting they might have been overworked and exhausted.
“Ex controller here, trust me when I tell you it’s happened here as well,” someone wrote.
“What if they’re overworked and the company covered it up? They don’t deserve to get fired then,” another said.
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