AJACCIO, CORSICA – A routine flight from Paris to Corsica turned into an unexpected aerial tour after the sole air traffic controller on duty was found to have fallen asleep, leaving an approaching passenger plane circling with nowhere to land.
The incident occurred in the early hours of Monday morning as Air Corsica flight XK777, an Airbus A320, approached Napoleon Bonaparte Airport in Ajaccio. Pilots attempting to make contact with the control tower for landing instructions were met with silence. To their growing concern, they could see the critical runway lights were switched off.
With repeated calls going unanswered, the pilots entered a holding pattern above the Gulf of Ajaccio. They urgently contacted the airport’s fire service, who in turn alerted local police to the strange silence from the tower.
After approximately 20 minutes of circling, the runway lights suddenly flickered on and contact was finally established with the controller. The flight was then able to land safely.
One passenger aboard told local newspaper Corse-Matin that those on board remained calm. “We did a little sightseeing,” they joked. “At no point was there any panic.” The captain, however, was reportedly stunned, stating, “In my decades of experience, I’ve never had to deal with a situation like this.”
France’s civil aviation authority confirmed the extraordinary details to AFP, stating: “The intervention of the airport fire department at the control tower revealed that the air traffic controller on duty had fallen asleep at his post.” The controller was later questioned by authorities and was said to be in “good health.”
The event echoes other recent incidents of fatigue in the aviation industry. In 2024, an investigation was launched in Indonesia after both pilots on a Batik Air flight allegedly fell asleep simultaneously, and a similar event occurred on an Ethiopian Airlines flight in 2022.
The flight, which had departed Paris nearly an hour late, finally landed in Ajaccio after its unscheduled and unnerving delay.
