Recently, an incident occurred on a French flight where the air traffic controller fell asleep, causing the flight to circle abnormally.The flight took off from the Paris area at 10:45 pm on the 15th and was originally scheduled to depart from Paris Orly Airport. At this time, the flight had been delayed for nearly an hour.
That night, there was no incident when the plane arrived near the Ajaccio Airport in Corsica.
However, while preparing for approach and landing, the crew discovered that the runway lighting system was not turned on.
The captain immediately tried to contact the tower via radio, but received no response after repeated calls.
A passenger told the media that the plane began to circle over the runway, waiting for a response from the airport fire department. Firefighters contacted the tower and found no one answered, then notified the gendarmerie.
The situation at the time was that if contact with the tower could not be made, the flight would have to be diverted to Bastia.
However, the passenger also said: "There was no panic throughout the whole process and everyone remained calm."
The plane circled over the Bay of Ajaccio for an hour before finally seeing the runway lights come on and communications with the tower restored.
It turned out that the only controller in the tower fell asleep at the time, and the controller was on duty alone at the time.
The pilot said he had "never encountered anything like this" in his "decades of career."
It is reported that rescue workers and law enforcement authorities conducted various toxicology and alcohol tests on the air traffic controller, and the results were all negative.