WASHINGTON – The Trump administration began firing hundreds of federal aviation employees and began overturning staff on busy air travel weekends weeks later Fatal hollow collision Ronald Reagan at Washington National Airport in January.
David Spero, president of the Professional Aviation Safety Professionals Union, said in a statement that the probationary workers were targeted in a late-night email on Friday and that they were fired.
“It’s embarrassing to abandon a dedicated civil servant who has chosen to work on behalf of his fellow Americans,” Sparo said. “These employees were dedicated to their work and the FAA safety mission, and this tough action will increase workloads and place new responsibility on the already thinning workforce. ”
The affected workers include systems experts, safety inspectors, maintenance mechanics and administrative staff, the union said.
Spero said messages began to arrive after 7pm on Friday, and lasted until late into the night. He said there may be more notifications over the long weekend or they may be banned from entering the FAA building on Tuesday.
The employee was “dismissed based on performance or behavior for no reason,” Spero said, and the email was “from an “exec Microsoft email address” rather than a government email address.
The firing collided with the FAA when faced with a lack of controllers. Federal officials have raised concerns over the years about overtensive and understaffed air traffic control systems, particularly after a series of close calls between planes at US airports. Among the reasons they cited due to a shortage of staff are non-competitive pay, long shifts, intensive training and mandatory retirement.
On January 29th, one controller was passing both commercial airline and helicopter traffic at a busy airport in a fatal collision between a US Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airline passenger jet still under investigation .
A few days before the conflict, President Trump had already fired all members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee. This is a panel mandated by Parliament following the 1988 Panam 103 bombing through Scotland’s Lockerbee. The committee is being charged with investigating safety issues at airlines and airports.
One FAA employee fired over the weekend suggested that he was not part of a common trial level sweep, but targeted his views on his previous Twitter, Tesla and X . Both are owned by Elon Musk, who is leading the president’s efforts to cut the federal government.
Charles Spitzer-Stadtlander posted on LinkedIn that he was fired shortly after midnight on Saturday, days after he began receiving messages on Facebook.
“The official Doge Facebook page started harassing me on my personal Facebook account after criticising Tesla and Twitter,” writes Spitzer-Stadtlander. “In less than a week, I was fired despite allegedly exempt for national security.”
He added: “When Doge fired me, they turned my computer off and wiped all my files without warning.”
Spitzer-Stadtlander said he was supposed to be exempt from probation shooting as the FAA office he worked focused on national security threats, such as drones attacking national space. I stated.
The Musk-led Government Efficiency Bureau did not immediately respond to the Associated Press’ request for comment.
Transport Secretary Sean Duffy wrote on X on Sunday that the Musk’s SpaceX team will visit the FAA command center in Virginia on Tuesday to look directly at the current system. Duffy also said he would “learn their education and how to ensure only the best aircraft” to travel to Oklahoma later in the week to visit the FAA’s Air Traffic Control Training Center.
Chris Van Cleeve contributed to this report.
