India Discloses 56 Airline Pilots Failed Sobriety Tests

India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation has recently released a list of fifty-six airline pilots flying in India that have failed sobriety tests over the past two years.   This release, while disturbing unto itself isn’t the surprising part of the story …

… the surprising part of the story is that twenty thee of the pilots fly for Jet Airways and none of them have been fired from the airline.

Jet Airways’ explanation for the airline not firing these pilots is that in December 2010 India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation drafted a new regulation that states a pilot arriving to work intoxicated will be grounded for three months for the first offense, and then lose their license to fly on the second offense.

What Jet Airways fails to address is that is that all the twenty-three pilots that failed the sobriety test did so before December 2010, prior to the regulations being put in place … so why weren’t the pilots terminated?

In total, ten of the fifty-six intoxicated pilots have been fired fro their jobs.  Air India, Indigo, Go Air, Kingfisher and SpiceJet are not commenting on their pilots having failed sobriety tests.

Flying can be a stressful job, but knocking back a few drinks to loosen up before work is never a good idea, especially if you’re a pilot.

Happy Flying!