2 More Air India Pilots Fail To Clear 1st Drug Test After Phuket Flight Fiasco

Two more Air India pilots could not clear the preliminary drug test ordered by the Tata-owned airline following the incident on the Phuket-Delhi flight that left many injured. The results of the final test are awaited, sources said. The two pilots have been de-rostered in the meantime.

The airline had ordered all its pilots to get the drug test done, as part of new standard operating procedure (SOP), after the pilot-in-command of the Phuket-Delhi flight failed two urine tests he was asked to undergo when the flight landed. Marijuana had been detected in his system.

Over 300 Air India pilots have gone through the test process so far. The results of the final drug test usually take 24-48 hours to come, sources said.

A cabin crew member aboard the flight was believed to have submitted a complaint alleging the pilot had earlier smoked "pot".

The flight that triggered these actions by the airline authorities involved an Airbus A-320Neo. The aircraft had violently dropped 300 feet, indicating there was a total and simultaneous loss of key control surfaces, including the elevators and ailerons, for four seconds. The spoilers also lost control as a consequence of the same hydraulic failure.

During those four seconds, the elevators and ailerons of the A-320Neo drifted on their own without any pilot command following multiple failures of the jet's three hydraulic systems, unprecedented in operations of this type of airliner.

Hydraulics are critical to the operation of flight control surfaces, namely the elevators which pitch the nose up or down, the ailerons which roll the aircraft left or right by tilting the wingtips, and spoilers which reduce lift, add drag to help the aircraft descend or slow down (including braking on landing).

Following the incident which was first reported as linked to "turbulence", until clarity came in the form of hard data from the aircraft's system logs, Air India had said it undertook regular drug testing of crew members in compliance with civil aviation regulations, independent of any specific flight or operational incident.