Pilots body calls for making oral fluid testing complementary under drug testing framework

The Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) on Tuesday urged aviation safety regulator DGCA to consider oral fluid testing as a complementary method along with the existing urine-based screening under its drug testing framework.

In a submission to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), FIP has also sought to increase pilots' random drug testing to 25 per cent from the existing 10 per cent.

The FIP submission comes following the pilot of Tata Group-owned Air India's Phuket-Delhi flight early this month testing positive for drugs, later prompting the airline group to order some 5,000 of its pilots to undergo a mandatory one-time dope test.

At present, the DGCA framework under a particular Civil Aviation Requirement provides for urine-based testing, including screening, confirmatory testing and subsequent medical review.

"While the existing urine-testing system has an established regulatory and laboratory framework, FIP believes that the increasing scale of Indian aviation operations warrants consideration of additional testing methodology that can increase testing capacity, reduce operational disruptions and facilitate rapid testing at airports and other operational locations," C S Randhawa, President of FIP, said in the submission.

Noting that there is significant international precedent for permitting oral-fluid testing alongside urine testing, Randhawa said the additional mechanism could offer substantial advantage in the Indian aviation environment.

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FIP said it is not seeking immediate replacement of the existing norms for drug-testing on pilots but is proposing to the regulator to consider "a risk-based hybrid model under which oral testing may be used for testing regularly, at random, targeted, reasonable-suspicion, high-volume, and selected post-occurrence screening where rapid collection is advantageous.

"Urine testing may continue to be used where its longer detection window, established laboratory procedures or existing medical/regulatory requirements make it more appropriate, while any non-negative screening result should undergo validated confirmatory laboratory testing before any final regulatory, employment or medical determination," the pilots body said.

It also said that medical review should continue to be an integral part of the process, particularly where prescribed or legitimate therapeutic medication may explain a confirmed analytical finding, and added that such a framework would preserve the strengths of the existing system while providing DGCA with an additional operational tool.

"FIP recommends that DGCA consider replacing the current 10 per cent annual minimum random-testing concept as the principal benchmark with a more robust continuous and risk-based surveillance framework. As an immediate step, DGCA may consider increasing random testing of pilots to a minimum of 20-25% annually, with repeat selection permitted and testing distributed unpredictably throughout the year," it said.

Oral-fluid testing should then be introduced as a complementary methodology to facilitate higher testing frequency, particularly for airport, airside, mobile, random and targeted testing, it said.

The proposed Indian framework should combine 20-25 per cent plus random coverage, repeat selection, unannounced, post-occurrence as well as reasonable-suspicion testing, among others, the pilot body said.