Ethiopian Airlines pilots fell asleep mid-flight and missed landing in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, according to commercial aviation news website Aviation Herald late Thursday. According to Bloomberg, the pilots were later suspended pending an investigation.

The incident reportedly happened on Monday, while the plane was travelling from Sudan's Khartoum to Addis Abeba's Bole Airport.

According to Aviation Herald, Air Traffic Control (ATC) raised an alert as the flight of Africa's largest carrier approached but did not land.

The plane was on autopilot, and it was cruising at 37,000 feet.

The ATC tried multiple times to contact the pilots of flight ET343, but were unable to reach them, Africa's largest airline stated in a statement.

“When the plane overflew the runway where it was supposed to land, the autopilot disconnected. That triggered an alarm, which woke up the pilots,” the news portal reported.

They then allegedly manoeuvred the aircraft around for a safe landing on the runway 25 minutes later, according to the report.

The aircraft remained on the ground for approximately 2.5 hours after landing before departing for its next flight, according to the report.

The incident was confirmed by the aviation surveillance system ADS-B, which provided a photo of the aircraft's flight route, which shows an infinity-like loop around the Addis Ababa airport.

Ethiopian Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Bloomberg's report.

A similar incident occurred earlier this year when two pilots fell asleep mid-flight on a journey from New York to Rome.

While the exact cause of the latest incident remained unknown, and the airline did not comment on it, aviation experts suggested that one of the causes may be pilot fatigue.

“Pilot fatigue is nothing new, and continues to pose one of the most significant threats to air safety, internationally. Just last week, pilots publicly criticised UK leisure airline Jet2 for refusing to recognise concerns about pilot fatigue,” aviation analyst Alex Macheras said in a Twitter post on Thursday, terming the latest incident “deeply concerning”