Spain Air Controller Asleep at the Switch

MADRID — Investigators are trying to determine why an air traffic controller was asleep while an airliner with 100 passengers circled overhead for 40 minutes waiting to land at Granada in southern Spain, civil aviation authorities said Thursday.

An Aviaco MD-80, on a flight from Madrid last Saturday, was in contact at all times with air traffic control in Seville and there was no danger to passengers, a civil aviation official said.

But the only controller at Granada at the time was asleep and the plane had to wait until he had awakened and gone to the airport tower before it could land.