Courtesy Paramount

This is your Captain speaking…

Two airliners landed at Reagan National Airport near Washington without control tower clearance because the air traffic supervisor was asleep, safety and aviation officials said Wednesday.

The supervisor — the only controller scheduled for duty in the tower around midnight Tuesday when incident occurred — had fallen asleep, said an aviation official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the incident.

The National Transportation Safety Board is gathering information on the occurrence to decide whether to open a formal investigation, board spokesman Peter Knudson said.

“I’m not sure that in all the years I’ve been flying airplanes that I can recall coming into a major airport and I couldn’t get hold of a controller in the airport tower,” said aviation safety consultant John Cox.

There’s nothing in the FARs (Federal aviation regulations) to cover this situation. Controllers at other facilities can advise but not provide landing clearance. The pilots were on their own. It’s a good bet they won’t be hassled for landing without clearance.