It's scary when you hear something like a Pilot flying irresponsibly. A couple of days back an incident happened on an Air India flight from Phuket to Delhi. The Aircraft encountered a sudden drop of altitiude, the turbulence was hard and this also harmed some of the passengers. There was a sudden drop of 300 feet, so one can imagine the plight of the passengers. Later it did land safely but imagine the fright the passengers must have got in that moment.

As per the protocols later both the pilots were medically examined and there was a positive result of a psychoactive substance found in one of them who was the main controller. So basically the first screening shows positive dope results, which can be expected considering they were returning from Phuket. Nothing much has been revealed after this and Air India also mentions that they do not have the final results yet.

Source

I remember when we travelled to Turkey last year, something similar happened on our flight from Istanbul to Cappadocia. We were about to land and suddenly the aircraft flew up again gaining very fast height, there was extreme turbulence and the kids started crying. It was a panic scene in the aircraft. We never got to know what was the reason, was it technical error or pilot's fault in landing or the wind. But in that moment my mind had 1000s of thoughts of what can happen.

There are strict rules and yes we can say that these incidents are not often but even one of them can bring a huge devastation. In the air the situation is so helpless and the passengers are always at the Pilot's mercy, how he navigates and controls situations, but if he only acts careless then who can passengers look up to. As per the DGCA rules there is a mandate of a random drug testing for 10% of the crew and air traffic controllers every year. If they are found positive they are removed from the job. Why not 100%, after all it's a question of safety. 10% is nothing for a check.

The authorities can remove the person from the job later but by then the damage has already happened. Flying is also a scary thing sometimes, it does bother me because I fly frequently and such cases do make me anxious.

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