Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version of this story misstated how long the aircraft circled. The Air Corsica flight circled for about half an hour.

Usually when airplanes have to go into a holding pattern, it's because of weather or some other danger preventing them from landing. But passengers on one recent French flight got a tour of the airspace around Corsica because the air traffic controller on duty had fallen asleep.

An Air Corsica flight was forced to circle for about half an hour during the early morning of Sept. 16 when its pilots were unable to reach controllers for landing clearance, the Times of London reported. There was only one controller on duty at Napoléon Bonaparte airport in Ajaccio, the capital of Corsica, at the time of the incident.

The pilot was able to get in touch with regional air traffic controllers who sent local authorities to check on the controller on duty. Eventually, first responders gained access to the tower and woke up the sleeping controller, who switched on the runway lights and cleared the flight for landing.

"In a career of several decades I have never had to handle such a situation. We did a little tour. At no time was there any panic. Everyone stayed calm," the flight's captain told The Times. The passengers treated the incident with good humor, he added.

Tracking data from FlightAware shows the path of the plane, which flew in a holding pattern over the Mediterranean Sea.

French air traffic controllers regularly demonstrate against what they say are poor, understaffed working conditions.

Air traffic control understaffing has been a persistent issue in the U.S. as well, although there haven't been reports of controllers falling asleep while on duty here.

Still, controller shortages have led to other kinds of headaches for travelers in the U.S.

A series of technology outages for systems that controllers at Newark Liberty International Airport rely on caused a number of employees to take trauma leave this spring and summer, which forced airlines that serve Newark to reduce the number of flights and led to weeks of significant flight delays before their schedules were adjusted.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has promised to invest in new air traffic control technology and boost hiring at the Federal Aviation Administration, and Congress approved a new slate of funding for the agency earlier this year.

Zach Wichter is a travel reporter and writes the Cruising Altitude column for USA TODAY. He is based in New York and you can reach him at zwichter@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Sleeping French air traffic controller underscores the danger of understaffing

Reporting by Zach Wichter, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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