Jet left circling as controllers dozed
Print Edition
A PASSENGER jet had to circle an airport in central China for more than 10 minutes after air traffic controllers took a nap on duty and overslept, a leaked document has revealed
The China Eastern Airlines flight was only able to land at Wuhan in Hubei Province after air traffic control for the previous airspace sector managed to rouse the two sleeping controllers, the Civil Aviation Administration of China report said.
All the air traffic controllers involved now face disciplinary action, according to the confidential report leaked online yesterday.
Flight MU2528 from Sanya on Hainan Island failed to get a response from the control tower at Tianhe International Airport in Wuhan shortly before 3am on July 8.
A transcript of the flight recording released by the administration yesterday shows that the flight crew made repeated attempts to contact the duty flight controllers — twice in English and once in Chinese. Those calls went unanswered.
The airplane was forced to return to 900 meters and circle the airport for 12 minutes before landing, the report said.
It finally landed safely at 3:07am.
“The air traffic controllers at the airport broke rules by sleeping during the night shift, while the controller for the previous sector should also bear some responsibility,” the administration report said.
Under regulations, the controller in the previous sector — who was responsible for the aircraft while it was above 750 meters — should have contacted the Wuhan control tower to hand over responsibility.
However, the controller signed off, leaving it to the pilot to make contact with Tianhe International Airport.
At 2:53am, the pilot attempted to contact the control tower three times — speaking in both English and Chinese — to make a landing, but received no response.
He then contacted the previous sector’s controller, who told him to abort landing and climb to 900 meters.
Then the controller managed to make contact with the Wuhan pair and they brought the aircraft in.
The Wuhan controllers, surnamed Hu and Luo, began their shift at 1:30am and decided to take a nap as they had a 50-minute gap before MU2528 was due, the administration said. Procedures would be overhauled to prevent similar incidents, the report said.
China Eastern has suffered other mishaps in recent months. On June 17, a China Eastern airplane landed off the runway in the southern city of Nanning.
On June 19, another of its planes veered off the runway shortly after it landed at Changzhi airport in Shanxi Province in heavy rain. There were no casualties in either incident.
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