Nathan Guy

Wellington, April 13 NZPA - Monitoring of commercial pilots for alcohol and drug issues will intensify 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 will add to the current checks when a pilot enters the system and is obligated to declare any convictions.

Mr Guy said the random checks would be a "strong incentive" for pilots to disclose any convictions.

The second initiative is the introduction of an electronic database to enable more effective information gathering and monitoring of trends.

The CAA is working on implementing the new measures and is 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 a 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.

The changes follow government intervention after it was reported that Air New Zealand pilot Warwick West managed to hide three convictions for drink-driving and remain flying.

TV3 reported Mr West had three convictions for drunk driving in 1998, 2001 and 2007 and one further charge against him dropped in 2004.

He continued to fly and did not tell Air NZ or the CAA of his offending and it was only when police tipped off both organisations after the 2007 conviction that they became aware of it.

At the time there were other reports of a police officer saying Air NZ was turning a blind eye to a drinking culture among its staff, an accusation that was vigorously denied by the airline.