Monitoring of commercial pilots with alcohol and drug issues will be improved with two new measures announced today by Associate Transport Minister Nathan Guy.The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) will work with the Ministry of Justice to carry out random ch
Monitoring of commercial pilots with alcohol and drug issues will be improved with two new measures announced today by Associate Transport Minister Nathan Guy.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) will work with the Ministry of Justice to carry out random checks on commercial pilots for any undeclared criminal convictions.
This would be in addition to the current checks when a pilot enters the system and the obligation for them to declare any convictions.
Mr Guy said the random checks would be a "strong incentive" for pilots to disclose any convictions.
The second initiative was the introduction of an electronic database to enable more effective information gathering and monitoring of trends.
The CAA was working on implementing the new measures and was to report back by mid-October.
"I'm confident that airlines take the issue of drug and alcohol abuse seriously, and that the vast majority of pilots do an outstanding job," Mr Guy said.
The CAA believed alcohol abuse and recreational drug use for pilots was "well below" that of the general population and comparable with other nations.
