Fatigue at work ? Ethiopian Airlines Pilots fell asleep instead of descending to Addis Ababa from FL370 !

Fatigue in Aviation ?

Not a first , It has been discussed in many forums and occasions on how flight crew are getting fatigued due to long hours of work and tight schedules .

Last time , More than 1,100 Southwest Airlines pilots protested outside Love Field Airport (KDAL) , that aimed at raising awareness to pilot fatigue, stress, at the same time, asking for better scheduling management,updated contracts & less pressure to work.

The Incident !

On 15th August , an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing B737 aircraft (ET-AOB) cruising at an altitude of 37,000ft did not descend by the time it reached destination Addis Ababa , Ethiopia , because both the pilots reportedly fell asleep.

Air traffic control tried to contact the crew on more than one occasion without any response, Pilots became active after the alert announcing the disconnection of the autopilot sounded.

Aircraft landed safely on Runway 25L without further invonvenience, after necesssary procedures were done. Aircraft was doing the flight ET343 from Khartoum (KRT) to Addis Ababa (ADD).

At multiple occasions , examples demonstrate , how human factors and limitations are being breached in aviation just to get the work done at the expense of safety of occupants of aircraft , the aircraft and assets.

Airline management seems ignore the greater consequences of fatigue and breach oh Human factors in competitive environments .

Couple of months ago , Wizz Air CEO had said ,  we can not run this business with 'sickness reporting' due to fatigue ! “The damage is huge when we are cancelling the flight" , "We are all fatigued" .

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