WASHINGTON (AP) – The Trump administration begins to fire hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration employees over a busy air travel weekend, weeks after a deadly air collision in January at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport I did.
David Spero, president of the Professional Aviation Safety Professionals Union, said in a statement that the probationary workers targeted them on Friday notifying them that they had been fired.
The affected workers include maintenance of personnel hired for the FAA radar, landings and navigation aid, an air traffic controller told The Associated Press. Air traffic controllers were not permitted to speak to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
In a message posted on X late Monday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said fewer than 400 FAA employees have been fired and “aviation traffic controllers and key safety personnel have been let go.” Ta.
Transportation officials told the Associated Press early Monday that the agency is “preserving employees who perform important safety functions.” In a follow-up query, agents said they must check whether affected radar, landing aid, and navigation aid workers are thought to handle critical safety features.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association said in a brief statement Monday that “we will analyze the effectiveness of reported terminations of federal employees on aviation safety, the National Space System and our members.”
Other fired FAA employees have been urgently classified early warning radar announced by Hawaii in 2023 to help the Air Force detect incoming cruise missiles through a Department of Defense funded program. I was working on the system. This is one of several programs managed by the FAA's National Airspace Systems Defense Program, involving radar providing long-range detection around the border.
Due to the nature of their work, staff in that office usually provide extensive knowledge transfer before resignation to ensure that institutional knowledge is not lost. Charles Spitzer Starlanderone of the branch's employees has ended.
Hawaii Radar and the FAA Defense Program Office, which is working on it, are “on national security protection,” Spitzer-Stadtlander said. “I don't think they even knew what the NDP was going to do. They just thought it wasn't a big deal, he just worked for the FAA.”
“It's about protecting national security and I'm so scared I can die,” Spitzer Starlander said. “And the American people must be scared too.”
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. A copy of the terminated email provided to the AP shows the send address “(Email Protection)”.
The shooting collided with the FAA as it faced a lack of controllers. Federal Employees raises concerns Especially after a series of close calls between planes at US airports, the air traffic control systems that have been overtensive and understaffed for years. Some of the reasons they cited due to a lack of staff include uncompetitive pay, long shifts, intensive training and mandatory retirement.
On January 29th, a fatal collision between a US Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet was still under investigation, and one controller handed it over Both commercial airline and helicopter traffic At a busy airport.
A few days before the conflict, President Donald Trump was already All members have been fired Out of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, through Scottish Lockerbie, a panel mandated by the Parliament following the 1988 Panam 103 bombing. The committee is being charged with investigating safety issues at airlines and airports.
Spitzer-Stadtlander suggested that it was aimed at firing his opinion on the previous Twitter, Tesla and X, rather than part of the general trial level sweep. The companies are owned by Elon Musk, who is leading Trump's efforts to reduce the federal government by government efficiency.
Spitzer Statlander is Jewish and got mad at the straight arm gesture of a mask at Trump's inauguration. On his personal Facebook page, he urged his friend to remove Teslas and X's accounts accordingly.
Spitzer-Stadtlander said the post caught A's attention Facebook account labeled “Government Efficiency”; It responded to the laughing emoji. Soon after that, he saw the same account respond to much older posts through his personal Facebook feed.
There are at least half a dozen Facebook accounts labeled “Government's Ministry of Efficiency,” and it is unclear who runs any of them. “Doge doesn't even have a Facebook page,” White House spokesman Karoline Leavitt said on X on Monday.
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.
“In less than a week, I was fired despite allegedly exempt for national security,” Spitzer Starlander posted on LinkedIn on weekend post. I wrote it in.
He said, “When Doge fired me, they turned my computer off and wiped all my files without warning.”
Doge did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The firing was first reported by CNN.
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Associated Press writer Ellen Nick Meyer contributed from Washington.
