Govt weighs annual random drug tests for all airline pilots

NEW DELHI: India is considering a move to test its over 12,000 commercial pilots for psychoactive substances randomly every year, potentially marking a 10-fold increase in the minimum testing coverage prescribed by the aviation regulator.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is examining the implications of shifting from the existing norm of testing at least 10% of the flight crew annually to a system of testing every pilot randomly at least once a year, civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu said on Tuesday.

Consultations with airlines are underway. If testing is expanded to all pilots, then India would be the first country in the world to have such a norm.

“There are multiple ways of approaching this dope test. Right now, the rule says 10% across the overall pilot network. DGCA is engaging and one of the opinions from our side is that everyone (commercial pilot) has to go through it in the year at a random time,” Naidu said on the sidelines of an event in New Delhi. “We have to see how all the stakeholders are going to respond because one is the safety aspect of it and the second thing is the operational impact.”

Moving to 100% coverage would mean substantially more samples being collected, processed and confirmed. Airlines will also have to manage the associated crew downtime, collection infrastructure, laboratory capacity and scheduling requirements.

For the government, the immediate task is to determine whether universal annual testing can deliver a meaningful improvement in safety while remaining workable for airlines. Naidu said the DGCA is currently assessing precisely that balance.

India’s major airlines—the Air India group, IndiGo, Alliance Air, Akasa Air and SpiceJet—employ roughly 12,000 pilots. In all, the number of licensed commercial pilots—including those who fly charter flights, helicopters and freighters—would be higher at about 25,000.

CS Randhawa, president of the Federation of Indian Pilots, said 100% testing is possible.

“And there is enough infrastructure available to carry out such tests. At present, 10% is a small number. And does not cover even a substantial set of pilots every year," Randhawa said.

Phuket-Delhi incident

The proposed expansion of testing norms comes after an Air India pilot on a Phuket-Delhi flight tested positive for a banned substance, prompting the airline group to order one-time testing of its entire pilot workforce.

An Air India Airbus A320neo experienced a sudden altitude loss of about 300 feet during cruise on 4 August. The incident resulted in injuries to passengers and crew and triggered investigations by aviation authorities.

The flight’s pilot-in-command subsequently returned a positive result for narcotics in a confirmatory drug test, according to a person familiar with the matter. The mandatory psychoactive-substance testing started on 13 August and covers roughly 5,000 pilots across Air India and Air India Express.

IndiGo, India's largest airline, already tests a significantly higher proportion of its pilots than the DGCA minimum. Willie Walsh, chief executive officer of IndiGo's parent InterGlobe Aviation, said at the company's annual general meeting last week that the airline routinely conducts random testing of about 20% of its 5,500 pilots every year, twice the regulatory minimum.

Walsh said IndiGo's substance-testing programme begins when employees join the airline and continues through random checks. The airline has conducted substance testing at induction since 2015, Walsh said. Its broader “fitness for duty” programme covers alcohol and substance use, fatigue and mental wellbeing.

Gradual increase

The Federation of Indian Pilots had called for a more gradual increase in testing instead of an immediate shift to universal annual testing. In a 17 August submission to the DGCA, the largest pilot body in India recommended increasing the minimum annual random-testing coverage from 10% to 20-25%. It called for genuinely random and unpredictable testing throughout the year, with repeat testing of the same pilot.

The central part of its submission was the introduction of oral-fluid testing alongside the urine-based system. The federation, however, is not seeking immediate replacement of urine testing. Under its proposed hybrid model, oral-fluid testing could be used for random, targeted and high-volume screening, while urine testing would continue where its longer detection window or other medical and regulatory requirements make it more appropriate.

India’s current framework also covers testing for amphetamine and amphetamine-type stimulants that impact the human nervous systems, opiates (containing opium) and metabolites, cannabis as tetrahydrocannabinol, cocaine, barbiturates and benzodiazepines.

In case of a first non-negative test, the person is tested a second time. If the second test results come “non-negative,” the pilot is de-rostered and put under deaddiction. Repeated violation could lead to cancellation of licences.