Pilots of an Ethiopian Airlines flight took autopilot to a whole new level after they fell asleep whilst they were still in the air.
On Monday (local time) the Airline Boeing 737-800 was travelling from Khartoum, Sudan to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, when the pilots fell asleep, The Aviation Herald reported.
The plane continued its journey without descending and air traffic control tried to make contact with the crew multiple times but had no success.
When the plane flew over the runway where it was supposed to land, the autopilot turned off.
After the autopilot turned off an alarm blared, waking the pilots up.
According to The Aviation Herald, the pilots then manually landed the aircraft safely on the runway, after the plane spent around 25 minutes flying over it.
On Friday (local time), aviation analyst Alex Macheras tweeted about the sleeping pilots.
"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," Macheras tweeted.
"Why hadn't it started to descend for landing? Both pilots were asleep."
The plane stayed on the ground for a further two-and-a-half hours before it departed for another flight.
