Sanjay Singh / New Delhi
India’s Civil Aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has ordered that from now pilots and air traffic controllers (ATCO) will have to undergo psychoactive substances checks.
The move is aimed to ensure that pilots flying planes and Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) officers guiding them are not high on dope or other drugs.
DGCA’s Director General, Arun Kumar I’m a order issued calls for “random drug testing for the consumption of (10) psychoactive substances” like cocaine, marijuana or hashish, MDMA or ecstasy and morphine or opiate.
I’m case a pilot or ATCO is tested positive for drug abuse for the first time, he would be grounded and made to undergo de-addiction or rehabilitation programme.
If he fails for the second time, it could lead to cancellation of licence, and the person would not be able to work as a pilot or ATC Controller again.
The DGCA had in 2019 started conducting Breadth Analyser test on ground staff too and had found over 130 violations by ground duty employees.
So far, employees from aviation sector have to go through breath-analyser (BA) checks that detects the level of alcohol content in the body and not presence of other drugs.