Federal Aviation Administration - FAA

The Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act of 1991 requires drug and alcohol testing of safety-sensitive transportation employees in aviation.

The FAA Drug Abatement Division develops and implements regulations for DOT/FAA drug and alcohol testing. These regulations cover employers, safety-sensitive employees and service agents. These rules are encompassed in 49 CFR Part 40 and 14 CFR Part 120.

The division also oversees the aviation industry’s anti drug and alcohol misuse prevention program compliance. This oversight is accomplished with on-site inspections, guidance documents, and policies.

According to FAA's drug and alcohol testing regulations (14 CFR Part 120), an employer (i.e., a Part 119 certificate holder with authority to operate under parts 121 and/or 135, an operator as defined in 14 CFR § 91.147, or an air traffic control facility not operated by FAA or under contract to the U.S. Military) or a contractor, who chooses to implement its own testing program, must ensure that any employee performing the following safety-sensitive functions directly or by contract (including subcontractors at any tier) are subject to drug and alcohol testing:

• Flight crewmember duties
• Flight attendant duties
• Flight instruction duties
• Aircraft dispatcher duties
• Aircraft maintenance & preventative maintenance duties
• Ground security coordinator duties
• Aviation screening duties
• Air traffic control duties

The individuals who are performing these safety-sensitive functions must be subject to pre-employment testing, reasonable suspicion/cause testing, random testing, return-to-duty, follow-up, and post-accident. The testing procedures are established in the Department of Transportation's Workplace Procedures for Transportation Workplace Drug and Alcohol Testing Programs, Title 49 CFR Part 40.

At Integrity Testing, aviation is our specialty!  Whether you are a large FAA employer or an aviation subcontractor, Integrity will help you get through the FAA program requirements by establishing a complete substance abuse testing program that complies with both the Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations as specified in 49 CFR Part 40 as well as FAA regulations as identified in 14 CFR Part 120. Integrity’s goal is to assist employers in having an “audit ready” program. These services include FAA required random drug (25%) & alcohol testing (10%).

Expanded DOT program information is available at www.dot.gov/ost/dapc/index.html: What Employers Need To Know About DOT Drug and Alcohol Testing [Guidance and Best Practices]