FAA Drug Testing and SMS for Flight Crews: 5 Programs to Have in Place Before May 2027

Written by: Abram Finkelstein

In most businesses, safety programs belong to a facilities or compliance team. In aviation, they are personnel programs. Who gets tested, how a positive result is handled, how an employee reports a mistake, what happens to the person who reports it, and whether training records can prove each crew member is qualified are employment questions as much as operational ones.

Five programs sit at the center of that work: drug and alcohol testing, the safety management system, duty and rest limits, pilot records, and the structure that decides who employs the crew. For Part 135 charter operators, most of them are federal requirements, and the safety management system has a hard deadline of May 28, 2027. For Part 91 flight departments, most are voluntary, which is one reason many small departments run without them.

This article walks through each program and what changes between the two rule sets. For a broader comparison of Part 91 and Part 135 on cost, liability and control, see our guide to Part 91 vs Part 135.

Key takeaways

Part 91 corporate pilots are outside the FAA’s mandatory drug and alcohol testing program, and a company can test them only under its own non-DOT policy.^[1]^[4]
Part 135 operators must place every safety-sensitive employee, contractors included, in an FAA testing program before they perform those duties.^[6]^[7]
Existing Part 135 operators must implement an SMS and submit a declaration of compliance to the FAA by May 28, 2027.^[12]
Part 91 sets no federal duty or rest limits for most crews, so the company’s written policy is the limit.^[20]^[22]
Part 91 departments operating two or more type-rated airplanes must report training, discipline and separation records to the Pilot Records Database.^[28]

Does the FAA drug test private and corporate pilots?

Not under the federal program. The FAA’s drug and alcohol testing rules in Part 120 cover Part 121 and Part 135 operators and Part 91 commercial air tour operators under section 91.147.^[1] Corporate pilots flying solely under Part 91 are not subject to the FAA’s mandatory testing program.^[2]

A company can still test them, but it must do so under its own company policy, using non-federal testing forms. It may not present the program as an FAA or DOT test, and DOT forms such as the federal custody and control form may not be used for a non-DOT test.^[3]^[4]

Many departments simply never write that policy. A University of North Dakota study of Part 91 corporate flight departments found that the odds of having a written alcohol and drug policy rose with each pilot added to the operation,^[5] which suggests the smallest departments are the least likely to have one. A written policy gives the company a clear basis for pre-employment, reasonable-suspicion and post-incident testing, tells employees what is expected of them, and lines up with what the company’s insurers and clients increasingly expect.

A workable Part 91 policy answers a short list of questions in writing: who is covered (pilots, maintenance technicians, flight attendants and any contract crew), which tests the company will run and when, which substances and cutoffs apply, what happens after a positive result or a refusal, how a pilot can return to duty, and how results are kept confidential. It should also say how the company’s employee assistance program fits in, so a pilot who asks for help before a problem shows up is treated differently from one who tests positive after a trip.

What are the FAA drug testing requirements for Part 135?

For Part 135 operators, testing is required. Every person performing a safety-sensitive function, such as flight crewmember, flight attendant, dispatcher or maintenance technician, must be covered by an FAA drug and alcohol testing program that follows the Department of Transportation’s procedures, and the program must be in place before anyone performs those duties.^[6]^[7] The requirement reaches contractors as well as direct employees, and FAA guidance specifically contemplates safety-sensitive work performed through a staffing company.^[2]

In practice, a charter operator needs:

a managed random testing pool that every safety-sensitive employee joins before flying revenue legs;
pre-employment, post-accident, reasonable-suspicion, return-to-duty and follow-up testing under the DOT procedures;^[7]
documented supervisor training for reasonable-suspicion decisions;
records that track which employees were performing Part 135 duties and when.

Mixed operations, where the same crew flies Part 91 and Part 135 legs, need both programs: the company policy for private flying and the federal program for charter, with clear rules on which applies when.

Does the FAA medical include a drug test?

No. The urine sample taken during an FAA medical exam is a routine urinalysis that an aviation medical examiner uses to screen for conditions such as diabetes and kidney disease, and it is not a drug test.^[8] A pilot who holds a current medical certificate has not been tested for drugs by the FAA.

That gap matters most for Part 91 departments. Without a company testing policy, a corporate pilot may go years without a drug or alcohol test, and the first one may come after an accident.

Can a Part 91 company drug test pilots in states with cannabis protections?

A Part 91 company testing policy must also comply with state workplace drug testing laws, which vary. California, for example, bars employers from penalizing employees for off-duty cannabis use and from acting on tests that detect only non-psychoactive cannabis metabolites.^[9] New York protects lawful off-duty cannabis use under its labor law.^[10] Several other states have their own rules on testing and off-duty use.

Most of these laws exempt testing that federal law requires. A Part 91 crew is not covered by a federal testing requirement, so that exemption generally does not help a corporate flight department. Some state laws carve out safety-sensitive positions in other ways, so the company policy has to be written for the states where its crews live and work.

What are the Part 135 SMS requirements for May 28, 2027?

A safety management system (SMS) is a formal, organization-wide approach to finding hazards and managing risk before they lead to an accident. It has four parts: safety policy, safety risk management, safety assurance and safety promotion.^[11]

For Part 135 operators, SMS is now a federal requirement. The FAA’s April 2024 final rule extended the Part 5 SMS requirements that already applied to airlines to Part 135 operators and Part 91 air tour operators. Existing operators must implement an SMS and submit a declaration of compliance to the FAA by May 28, 2027.^[12]^[11]

For a small operator, the four parts are concrete. Safety policy is a written commitment signed by an accountable executive, usually the owner or president, with named safety responsibilities. Safety risk management is a repeatable way to assess hazards before a trip or a change in the operation, such as a new airport, a new aircraft type or a new pilot. Safety assurance is the record that shows those controls are working, built from hazard reports, audits and trip data. Safety promotion is the training and communication that keep everyone using the system.

The rule is meant to scale. Small operators can assign SMS duties to existing staff without hiring dedicated personnel,^[13] and NBAA has published a practical guide written for small operators.^[14] The declaration, however, is the point where enforcement starts. Operators that have already reached compliance report that FAA inspectors are asking for evidence that the SMS is actually being used.^[15]

Should a Part 91 flight department have an SMS?

For Part 91 flight departments, SMS remains voluntary, and NBAA has said there is no proposal on the table to require it for all Part 91 operators.^[16] The case for adopting one anyway is strong. The NTSB has repeatedly pushed for wider SMS adoption, including a recommendation that the FAA encourage all Part 91 business operators to adopt an SMS.^[17]

NBAA advocates SMS for flight departments of every size. The International Standard for Business Aircraft Operations (IS-BAO), the industry’s voluntary code of best practice, is built around an SMS that scales down to single-aircraft, single-pilot operations.^[18] There is a financial case too: NBAA members have reported lower insurance premiums after completing IS-BAO registration.^[19]

An SMS only works if people report hazards, errors and close calls, and they will only do that if they trust the response. That trust is built or destroyed by employment policy: whether reporting an honest mistake leads to discipline, how the reporting system interacts with drug testing and fitness-for-duty rules, and how the company treats a pilot who raises a fatigue or mental health concern.

How many days in a row can a pilot fly?

Under Part 91, the answer is set by the company. Outside of fractional ownership programs and flight instruction, Part 91 imposes no federal flight, duty or rest limits.^[20]^[21] The flexibility is part of what makes business aviation valuable, and it also means the department must write, and enforce, its own rules. NBAA and the Flight Safety Foundation publish science-based duty and rest guidelines for exactly this purpose.^[22] NBAA’s small flight department leaders have cautioned that written limits mean little unless they are enforced and the principal understands why they exist. In a reader poll alongside that discussion, roughly a third of respondents said their operation had no documented fatigue risk management program.^[23]

A written Part 91 duty policy should state the maximum duty day, the minimum rest before the next duty period, how many consecutive days a pilot may be scheduled, how an augmented crew changes those limits, and who has the authority to extend a duty day when a trip runs long. The last point matters most in practice, because the person asking for an extension is often the principal the pilots work for.

Part 135 imposes federal flight time and rest limits on unscheduled crews.^[24] Under one of the two scheduling methods, for example, a crew’s regularly assigned duty period may not exceed 14 hours, with flight time capped at 8 hours for a single pilot and 10 hours for two.^[25] Schedulers and pay rules have to work within those limits, and the records have to prove it.

Mixed operations draw the most scrutiny. Part 91 repositioning legs flown after a full Part 135 duty day have drawn concern from the FAA, the NTSB and NBAA.^[26] A written policy that applies the Part 135 limits to the whole trip, whatever part a leg is flown under, removes that question.

What does the Pilot Records Database require from corporate flight departments?

Under the Pilot Records Database rule, Part 135 operators carry the heaviest obligations: reviewing a pilot’s records before hire and reporting their own pilots’ records to the FAA on an ongoing basis.^[27]

Corporate flight departments are covered by parts of the rule as well. It applies to Part 91 corporate flight departments that operate two or more airplanes requiring a type rating, or turbine-powered rotorcraft, along with air tour operators. Those departments must register for database access, report training, final disciplinary actions and final separation records, and answer record requests within 14 days.^[28] Each of those records starts in HR, which means the database is only as accurate as the personnel file behind it. A department that documents training in a pilot’s logbook and a discipline decision in an email thread will struggle to answer a request from a prospective employer within the 14-day window. Keeping training records, final disciplinary actions and separation records in the personnel file from the day they happen is the simplest way to stay ready.

Who must employ the pilots on a Part 135 flight?

The most consequential difference between the two rule sets is whom the crew work for. Part 135 itself requires that the airmen a certificate holder uses be properly certificated and qualified.^[29] FAA operational control guidance goes further: pilots on Part 135 flights must be employees or agents of the certificate holder,^[30] and a certificate holder may not franchise or lease out its authority to third parties.^[31] Wet leasing an aircraft with its crew is limited by separate rules.^[32]

Any staffing arrangement for a charter operator must therefore keep the crew under the certificate holder’s operational control and inside its training, checking, testing and records programs. Contract pilots are no shortcut: operators report that the hard part is keeping a bench of contract pilots who are already trained and checked on the operator’s program and ready to fly revenue trips on short notice.^[33]

Under Part 91, the aircraft owner remains the operator and retains operational control of every flight, and the FAA looks closely at who provides the pilots when it evaluates whether a private operation is really an illegal charter.^[34]^[35] The pattern the FAA looks for is one party supplying both the aircraft and the crew to someone else for compensation, which is a wet lease that needs a Part 135 or Part 121 certificate.^[34] An owner who dry leases the aircraft to another company, or flies it for an affiliate, should be able to show in writing who arranged the crew, who pays them and who decided each flight would go. Our guide to dry lease management and sham lease exposure covers the paperwork that supports that answer.

For HR, the practical point is that the crew employment structure is part of the operational control record. An offer letter, a contract pilot agreement or a staffing arrangement that blurs who directs the pilots can undo careful flight paperwork, so those documents should be reviewed together.

Why these programs belong in HR

Drug testing enrollment, SMS training, safety accountabilities, duty records and pilot records are all personnel records. They have to be kept current through turnover and contract staffing, and they have to cover the fill-in pilot as well as the regular crew. A flight department or charter operator that treats these programs as paperwork owned by the chief pilot, outside of how it hires, trains and manages people, is likely to find gaps exactly when an inspector, insurer or investigator asks for the records. The payroll, tax and insurance side of the same crew is covered in our guide to flight crew payroll, tax and insurance, and benefits and retention in our guide to corporate pilot benefits.

How WingLeader helps

WingLeader includes safety management in its back-office support for small flight departments and Part 91 operators. Our team tracks crew credentials, currency and training records, verifies each pilot before a trip goes on the schedule, and keeps the compliance records and procedures in one place, so the evidence an inspector or insurer asks for already exists.

When the schedule outgrows the roster, our crew staffing support can cover the trip with a qualified pilot whose currency and records are tracked by the same team that schedules the flight. The owner or certificate holder keeps authority over when, where and whether the aircraft flies.

To talk through your operation, schedule a consultation.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.