Ethiopian Airlines Pilots Fell Asleep Flying at 37,000 Feet, Reports Say

On a flight from Khartoum to Addis Ababa, both Ethiopian Airlines pilots stopped responding to air traffic controller calls.

On August 15, Ethiopian Airlines flight ET343 was en route from Sudan to Ethiopia when the aircraft’s two pilots fell asleep, according to the Daily Mail.

The Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 aircraft was cruising at 37,000ft, when alerts were raised on the ground as the plane had approached the airport but did not start to descend.

Air Traffic Control unsuccessfully tried to contact the plane’s crew.

Sometime later, the alarm of the disconnected autopilot awoke the two pilots and they managed to land the plane safely.

The data confirms the incident, which shows that the plane flew over the runway and managed to make another approach when the pilots woke up.

"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,” Aviation analyst Alex Macheras commented the incident on Twitter.

Two and a half hours later, the plane left the airport for its next flight.

A similar incident occurred in April, when, according to reports, two pilots flying from New York to Rome with 250 passengers failed to get in touch with Air Traffic Control for ten minutes and had presumably fallen asleep.