An Air India pilot tested positive for marijuana following an August 4 flight from Phuket to Delhi that left 12 people injured. The Airbus A320 suffered a sudden altitude drop and severe turbulence, prompting an investigation into the pilot's sobriety.
A cockpit floor collapse and two failed drug tests
The investigation into flight AI2379 revealed a harrowing scene in the cockpit of the Airbus A320. According to reporting by NDTV, the pilot was discovered sitting on the cockpit floor just as warning signals began alerting the crew to a dangerous loss of altitude. The situation was so dire that an investigator from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau had to physically assist the pilot in sitting down and providing a urine sample after landing.
The subsequent medical screenings confirmed the pilot's impairment, as he failed two separate drug tests that tested positive for marijuana. This intoxication coincided with a terrifying period of turbulence that lasted two to three minutes, during which the aircraft tilted and the interior cabin suffered physical cracks.. The sudden drop in altitude caused passengers who were not buckled in to strike the ceiling, resulting in at least 12 injuries to passengers and crew members.
Red eyes and the 'mountain out of a molehill' warning
Warning signs were allegedly present long before the Airbus A320 left the tarmac in Phuket. One passenger told NDTV that the pilot appeared visibly high before takeoff,noting that the captain's eyes were red and his responses were sluggish. When the passenger questioned the pilot about boarding times, the captain's demeanor was described as slow and detached.
The pilot reportedly attempted to suppress documentation of his state, urging passengers not to record any footage by stating, "baat ka batangad ban jayega" (it would be making a mountain out of a molehill). This behavior allegedly followed a crew party hosted by the pilot in Phuket during a layover of less than 24 hours, an event that prompted at least one crew member to file a formal complaint regarding the pilot's marijuana use.
The shadow of the June 12 Ahmedabad tragedy
This incident occurs against a backdrop of severe safety failures at Air India. On June 12, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner bound for London Gatwick crashed into a medical college shortly after departing from Ahmedabad Airport in India. That catastrophe resulted in 260 deaths, including 241 passengers and 19 people on the ground, leaving British national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh as the sole survivor.
The preliminary report into the Ahmedabad crash highlighted critical cockpit errors, noting that two fuel switches were moved from 'Run' to 'Cutoff,' effectively starving the engines of fuel. The confusion between Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and co-pilot Clive Kunder during those final seconds echoes the current concerns regarding cockpit discipline and pilot competency within the airline's operations.
The gap between 'brief turbulence' and a drug-positive cockpit
There remains a stark contradiction between the airline's public framing and the findings of the investigation. As NDTV reported, an Air India spokesperson initially described the event as a "brief turbulence-related event" and attributed the injuries to a sudden change in altitude , omitting any mention of pilot impairment.
Several critical points remain unresolved. while the drug tests were positive, the pilot has denied consuming any psychotropic substances, and it remains unclear how a pilot visibly impaired enough to be found on the cockpit floor was permitted to command a flight. Furthermore, the airline has yet to provide a detailed explanation of how its pre-flight sobriety checks failed to detect a pilot who was reportedly high before the aircraft even took off from Phuket.
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