Sleeping ATC staff delays landing of China Eastern Airlines

Beijing: A Chinese aircraft was forced to delay its landing after two air traffic controllers nodded off, reports said Tuesday, sparking a wave of online anger about airline safety. The Boeing 737 was preparing to land at Wuhan airport in central China but had no response from the air traffic control tower for 12 minutes, reports said. Contact was eventually made and China Eastern Airlines flight MU2528 from Sanya landed safely, the Sina.com news portal said.

“Because air traffic control was asleep on duty, (the plane) called many times,” civil aviation authorities said in a statement quoted by Chinese business magazine Caijing. “But there was no reply, and no contact could be made with the control tower.”