A pilot with the Indonesia’s largest domestic airline reportedly tested positive for crystal meth within hours before he was due for takeoff.
The 44-year-old Lion Air pilot was busted in a hotel in the city of Surabaya with 0.04 grams of crystal meth in an envelope, National Narcotics Agency spokesman Sumirat Dwiyanto told Reuters.
He later tested positive for the drug, which the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration describes as a highly addictive stimulant that can cause aggression, anxiety, confusion, paranoia and delusions in chronic abusers.
In Indonesia, crystal meth goes by the name “shabu-shabu” and last year surpassed marijuana in popularity in the country of 240 million people, according to Reutes.
The pilot’s arrest for crystal meth is the second so far this year to hit Lion Air.
Indonesia’s government will now require pilots and cabin crew with the “we make you fly” airline to undergo drug and alcohol tests before boarding, a Transport Ministry spokesman told Reuters.
