Air traffic control supervisors say they don't see drug use as a serious problem in their work force. Still as one FAA official put it, one drug user is one too many.

Right now, there is no routine drug testing for controllers though that will change around the first of the year. There will be pre-employment urine test and test along with the annual physical exam.

According to the FAA, there has never been a fatal accident involving a major US airline in which alcohol or drug abuse was a factor for the controllers or for the pilots.

But there have been a sizeable number of fatal accidents in which commuter pilots, air taxi pilots and private pilots had been drinking, and a much small number of cases in which drugs were a factor.

On another matter, drug use, or more precisely, alleged drug use by flight crews at US Air has been front-page news in Pittsburgh, the airline's operating base.

A grand jury is conducting an investigation into alleged drug use, sales and distribution.

Over the weekend, a Pittsburgh press newspaper quoted area hospital officials, who said they had treated about 20 US Air flight crew members for cocaine overdoses.

US Air acknowledges that one pilot nearly died of an overdose. He had last flown on September 7th, and was taken to the hospital on September 10th.

The airline has removed him from flight duty, and the FAA is considering revoking his medical certificate that would mean he could not fly any aircraft.

Meanwhile the FAA is conducting an investigation of the airline and is working with the grand jury and the FBI. I'm Wendy Kaufman in Washington.