published19. August 2022, 09:50
Boeing 737 incident“Extremely dangerous” – pilots fall asleep at 12,000 meters
If the passengers had known: Instead of initiating the descent to Addis Ababa, two Ethiopian Airlines pilots slept soundly in the cockpit. Only when an alarm finally went off and woke them up did they land the jet.
An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800: Such a machine was involved in the incident.
Imago
The plane landed in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
Imago
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On August 15, a disturbing incident erupted over Addis Ababa.
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Both pilots of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 had fallen asleep and missed the landing approach.
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According to experts, such behavior can be very dangerous.
The incident occurred on August 15, as the «Daily Mail» citing a professional journal. The Boeing 737 of Flight ET 343 had taken off from Khartoum and was over Addis Ababa, but instead of preparing for the approach to the airport and descending, the jet simply continued flying at 37,000 feet on course FL370.
Air traffic control staff found the pilot’s behavior strange and tried several times to draw his attention to it, but might not reach him or the co-pilot by radio. The reason: the two had fallen asleep on the stick and only woke up when the autopilot switched off following passing the usual sink point and a loud alarm sounded in the cockpit. The pilots then landed the jet safely on the runway.
Not the first incident of this kind
Aviation expert Alex Macheras called the incident on Twitter “very worrying”. He explained it as “pilot fatigue”, a phenomenon that “is nothing new”. In fact, a similar incident happened on a flight from New York to Rome in April of this year. Air traffic control spent ten minutes trying to reach the pilots of the jet of ITA Airways – the successor to Alitalia – and were regarding to sound the alarm, which sent fighter planes into the air, when the pilots finally answered. The pilot later said the radio was down, but the investigation convicted him of lying. The man was released.
As opposed to expert John Nance ABC7 states, such incidents are “extremely dangerous”, especially because sleeping pilots can neither watch the weather nor monitor the fuel gauge. “The plane can continue to fly on autopilot, but that’s neither smart nor safe.”
(trx)
