‘Increase drug testing from 10% to 25% for pilots:’ FIA to DGCA chief Vir Vikram Yadav | India News
NEW DELHI: As the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) reviews the dope test requirement for flight crew members, the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) has asked the regulator to amend the current requirement for an operator to subject at least 10 per cent of pilots to this test annually to at least 25 per cent. FIP president Captain CS Randhawa has said in a mail to DGCA chief Vir Vikram Yadav that all stakeholders must establish a pilot “psychoactive-substance and medication awareness programme” to make sure every pilot understands “certain prescription medicines, over-the-counter (OTC) medicines, herbal preparations, supplements and other commonly available products may contain substances that can affect alertness, performance or produce a finding in a drug or alcohol test.”FIP has identified certain medicines that may impact flight safety by causing drowsiness or sedation; impairing judgement or reaction time; reducing alertness and resulting in a positive or non-negative drug test. “Particular attention should be given to: cough and cold preparations, as some preparations may contain alcohol, sedating antihistamines or other active ingredients that may affect fitness for duty. Antihistamines and anti-allergy medicines (that may)may cause significant sedation and impaired alertness; sleep and anxiety medicines; strong pain-relieving medicines; prescription psychiatric or neurological medicines; herbal and traditional medicines and supplements and performance products and alcohol-containing medicines and preparations.” It has recommended a “check before you take” principle for pilots and that they should not start taking a new medicine without checking it for these things.“A minimum percentage established several years ago should not remain static when the aviation environment, fleet size, pilot population and operational intensity have changed substantially. For pilots entrusted with the lives of passengers and crew, random psychoactive substance testing must be sufficiently frequent, genuinely random and unpredictable to provide meaningful deterrence and continuous safety assurance.
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The objective should not merely be to achieve an annual numerical target, but to establish a testing regime in which the possibility of selection remains credible throughout the year,” FIP president Captain C S Randhawa wrote to the DGCA chief Vir Vikram Yadav.Since the result of a urine test takes a long time and the percentage of tests have sought to be increased, the pilots’ body has asked DGCA to consider “validated oral-fluid testing as a complementary methodology, alongside the established urine-testing system.”
