India
Air India Orders Groupwide Pilot Drug Screening
Will stricter checks change how airlines handle suspected impairment?
Will stricter checks change how airlines handle suspected impairment?
Air India’s matter because they sit at the point where , regulation and public trust meet. A serious in-flight altitude drop on a Phuket to Delhi service pushed the airline and regulators to test the crew, then widened scrutiny of how India handles suspected impairment and how far airlines should go beyond the minimum rulebook to prevent another scare.
The incident prompted fresh scrutiny of Air India’s and of whether India’s existing is strict enough. Reports said the was reviewing its rules for , while the ministry had already sought answers on how the airline was handling the case. The story shifted from one pilot’s test result to a wider debate over airline .
Air India then moved beyond the minimum regulatory approach and ordered of all pilots across the group. The airline’s internal drive was presented as a wider safety response to the , not just a one-off post-incident test. The step marked a tightening of company controls under public and regulatory pressure.
Multiple reports said the PIC’s came back positive, with identified as the substance involved. The incident intensified concern because the suspected impairment case followed a serious in-flight altitude drop. At this stage, investigators had not publicly tied the result to the aircraft’s loss of altitude.
Reporting on the case highlighted the DGCA framework for psychoactive-substance testing, including random checks, immediate removal from after a non-negative screen, confirmatory laboratory testing, and after a first confirmed positive. The rules also allow a pilot to return after rehabilitation and a negative test, but repeated positives can trigger or cancellation.
The aviation ministry said the PIC’s screening result required confirmatory testing, and that the final report was still awaited. It also said the had taken both crew members off while the investigation continued. Air India said it had been told a screening had been done, but not the result.
After the incident, both cockpit crew members were screened for under standard post-incident procedures. The pilot-in-command’s initial result was described as , meaning it required . Authorities then sent samples to a designated laboratory and removed both pilots from roster pending the outcome.
Air India flight AI2379 from Phuket to Delhi suffered a sudden loss of about 300 feet during cruise, then stabilised and landed safely in Delhi. The event was classified as a and sent to the for probe. The flight set off immediate scrutiny of both operational and crew-fitness factors.