Passengers on a flight to Ethiopia had a lucky escape when the plane landed safely despite two pilots falling asleep ahead of the descent
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.
Passengers on a flight to Ethiopia had a lucky escape when the plane landed safely despite two pilots falling asleep ahead of the descent, say reports.
Flight ET343 was en route from Khartoum in Sudan to Addis Ababa at 37,000 feet when the shocking incident occurred on August 15.
The pilots reportedly fell asleep before they were supposed to make their descent to Addis Ababa Bole Airport and were only awoke when the autopilot disconnected and sounded an alarm after air traffic control had been unsuccessful in attempts to contact the cockpit.
The flight then landed safely, despite having overflown the runway and having to make another approach.
The Daily Mail reported that data confirmed the incident, showing the aircraft was past the runway and made a second approach once the pilots were awake.
Aviation analyst Alex Macheras wrote on Twitter : “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.
“Air traffic controllers tried to contact the pilots numerous times without success
