Two pilots are believed to have fallen asleep and missed their landing during a flight from Sudan to Ethiopia on August 15, according to an Aviation Herald report. The incident took place on board an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 en route from Khartoum to Addis Ababa, where the crew “continued past the top of descent.” Data obtained by the website indicates that the aircraft was cruising at 37,000 feet on autopilot when it failed to descend at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport—its scheduled destination. Air traffic control were apparently unable to reach the crew despite making several attempts at contact, but an alarm was triggered when the plane overshot the runway and continued along its route.
The airplane hence started to drop, landing securely something like 25 minutes after the fact.
Programmed Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) information shows the airplane overflying the runway, prior to starting its drop and moving for another methodology.
“We have gotten a report which shows Ethiopian flight number ET343 in transit from Khartoum to Addis Ababa briefly lost correspondence with Addis Ababa Air Traffic Control on 15 August 2022,” peruses an assertion gave by Ethiopian Airlines on Friday.
“The flight later landed securely after correspondence was reestablished. The concerned group have been taken out from activity awaiting additional examination.
“Fitting remedial activity will be taken in light of the result of the examination. Security has forever been and will keep on being our primary goal,” the assertion said.
The report comes only months after pilots at Southwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines cautioned carrier leaders that pilot weariness was on the ascent and encouraged them to treat weakness and the subsequent missteps as a danger.
“Weakness, both intense and combined, has become Southwest Airlines’ main wellbeing danger,” the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, or SWAPA, told carrier leaders in a letter back in April.
As per the letter, the rising interest for air travel as the business quickly returns from the Covid-19 pandemic, and wiping out confusion achieved by serious weather conditions were among the purposes behind the expansion in pilot weariness.
Back in May, Italian paper Repubblica revealed that an ITA pilot had been terminated in the wake of “nodding off” during a trip between New York and Rome.
The co-pilot was supposed to be taking an “approved rest” at that point, prompting the Airbus A330 losing correspondence with aviation authority for ten minutes, as per the report.
