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Two unnamed British pilots cruising at at 30,000 feet,in a commercial airliner filled with passengers were both asleep at the controls last month, leaving the jet on autopilot for an unknown amount of time, British aviation authorities said.
The incident took place in August aboard an Airbus A330, capable of carrying up to 350 passengers, operated by Virgin Atlantic.
According to CNN News, the airline in a statement said, "Virgin Atlantic can confirm no safety reports have been received about pilots falling asleep simultaneously whilst in control of an aircraft".
However, abcNews claims that, the pilots came clean to authorities on their own, reporting the incident to their airline and the U.K.'s Civil Aviation Authority.
The pilots said they had received little sleep over two nights due to busy flight schedules and planned to rotate taking 20-minute naps, but they discovered they had both fallen asleep at the same time.
British pilots are allowed to sleep while in the cockpit under certain circumstances.
Jim McAusian, general secretary of the British Pilots Association, used the incident to blast the CAA's record on pilot fatigue in a statement Thursday, accusing it of being "far too complacent about the levels of tiredness among British pilots and failing to acknowledge the scale of the underreported problem".
