The Musk-Trump Administration fired "three hundred" FAA employees over the weekend — just hours before Saturday's deadly plane crash near Atlanta, Georgia that killed two people. And within just weeks of four other deadly crashes in the United States that happened on Donald Trump's watch.
The fired Federal Aviation Association employees — which included "personnel hired for FAA radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance" — received their dismissal notices Friday night, said CNN, adding that the workers might "even be barred from FAA facilities Tuesday after the federal holiday."
And the reason for the sudden mass firings? Apparently, "to help upgrade our aviation system," according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy earlier this month (via CNN). And furthermore, as Musk stated in early February (via Newsweek), "the DOGE team is aiming to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system." It's not clear how the rapid mass firings will lead to "rapid safety upgrades" — that detail was left out of reports.
"Staffing decisions should be based on an individual agency's mission-critical needs," said David Spero, national president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists. "To do otherwise is dangerous when it comes to public safety. And it is especially unconscionable in the aftermath of three [make that five] deadly aircraft accidents in the past month."
The move comes less than three weeks after a U.S. Army helicopter collided with a passenger jet that was about to land in Washington, D.C., killing 67, and an air ambulance crashed in Philadelphia, killing seven. Ten people died when a regional flight in Alaska went missing and was found crashed, earlier this month. Days later one person died in Scottsdale, Arizona, when a plane veered off the runway and collided with a parked aircraft.
Not included on in that list is Saturday's single-engine plane that crashed in the woods soon after takeoff from Covington Municipal Airport, killing both people on board, according to AP. But with such a mad rush to dismantle the US federal government, you can't expect the Musk's DOGE team of boys to worry about the small details.
Previously: Understaffed airport — rather than absurd DEI excuse — to blame for crash, says early findings
