Trump’s administration has begun shooting hundreds of federal aviation employees who maintain critical air traffic control infrastructure, reports the CNN. The fires, which started late Friday night, come as Elon Musk’s SpaceX thrown to create a new air traffic control system.
It is not yet clear how many employees were fired, but the Association of Aviation Specialists (PASS) reports that they have hit test workers or new recruitments in a test period. Employees were not air traffic auditors, who are incomplete due to staffing shortages that have continued for decades.
Employees received electronic messages late Friday night by telling them that they had been fired, according to David SPERO, president of the Pass Union. Employees include people hired for FAA radar maintenance, landing and navigation, according to an air traffic controller who spoke to Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.
Galen Munroe, Deputy Director of Public Affairs of the National Aviation Auditors (NATCA), told Techcrunch that launched workers include aircraft certification specialists, aviation technical system specialists, engineers and architects, employees.
SPERO noted that workers were fired “without a cause nor based on performance or behavior”. Email messages were not derived from a government email address. They came from Microsoft Microsoft’s email address.
Congress has asked FAA to face a model close to gaps and to modernize critical systems for years, and experts say the organization has failed to act on well -known issues.
To one statementNick Daniels, president of Natca, said: “We will analyze the impact of those terminals on aviation safety and on the national airspace. It is a sad day for those who have chosen to serve in the Security and Public Aviation Service only to Reduce their career. “
The news comes just a few weeks after January fatal conflict At Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in DC, where a controller handled both helicopter and airline traffic at the busy airport. Several other crashes have happened since then.
Days after Washington’s crash in January, Musk wrote in x This Trump has given the approval of the Doge Group (Department of Government Efficiency) to “make rapid security upgrades to the air traffic control system”.
Neither Musk nor Trump have shared what these security upgrades would be.
Members of Musk’s SpaceX team visit the Air Traffic Control Center in Virginia on Monday to “take a first look at today’s system, to find out which Air Traffic Auditors and to like their current tools and to envision how We can make a new, better, modern and safer system, “wrote Sean Duffy, secretary of the Ministry of Transport, in a Post in x.
This article was informed to include information and a Natca statement.
