New Delhi:After the captain of an Air India flight that was involved in a sudden altitude loss incident last month tested positive for drug use, aviation safety regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) ordered all Indian airlines to conduct a one-time test for psychoactive substances on all their pilots by July next year, according to sources.

Indian airlines are estimated to have close to 14,000 pilots. Following the incident that involved a Phuket-Delhi flight, and before the DGCA ordered tests for all pilots across airlines, the Air India group had voluntarily initiated one-time random drug tests on the about 5,000 pilots employed by Air India and Air India Express.

Moreover, the draft of the new and likely more stringent norms on testing aviation personnel for psychoactive substance use is likely to be related by the DGCA by month-end, according to Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu.Last month, Naidu had said that the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) suggested to DGCA that all pilots should undergo a dope test once a year, against the current regulation that requires 10% of the pilots to undergo random testing annually.

According to sources, while the DGCA was already in the process of revising the regulations pertaining to testing of aviation personnel for psychoactive substances, the Air India incident led to calls for more stringent drug testing protocol and stricter disciplinary action in proven instances of drug abuse.

Even as consultations for revising the rules were on, the regulator decided to put all airline pilots through a one-time drug test over the course of nearly 12 months.