‘Scared To Death’: Former FAA Employee Sounds Alarm On Mass Firings

A former worker of the Federal Aviation Administration issued a dire warning this week after he and tons of of different probationary workers had been fired amid mass federal authorities cuts beneath President Donald Trump.

“That is about defending nationwide safety, and I’m scared to dying,” mentioned Charles Spitzer-Stadtlander, who was a part of the FAA’s Nationwide Airspace System Protection Program, in an interview with The Associated Press. “And the American public must be scared, too.”

Spitzer-Stadtlander — who says he was engaged on a program in Hawaii to detect incoming cruise missiles — instructed The AP that he imagined his job was protected as a result of his department was tied to nationwide safety threats.

The firings, first reported by CNN, arrive simply weeks after a midair collision left 67 people dead in Washington, D.C.

Spitzer-Stadtlander instructed CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday that the general public “must be involved” by the firings of public security and nationwide safety professionals within the FAA and the Division of Transportation.

“By being summarily fired, with none warning, really, whereas I used to be within the means of working, I believe that that’s detrimental to nationwide safety,” he mentioned, including that he was working “late into the night time” opposite to the administration’s claims that federal staff are “leeches” on the federal government.

Spitzer-Stadtlander later hit again at a declare by White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who wrote on X that no “professionals who perform safety-critical functions” had been fired.

“From my perspective and the work I used to be doing, it’s a flat-out false assertion,” he mentioned.

One other former FAA worker, who labored as an aviation security assistant at Dallas Fort Price Worldwide Airport, told “CBS Mornings” on Tuesday that she figured her place wasn’t in danger, both.

A termination discover despatched Friday blamed the firing on her job efficiency, a transfer that employment lawyer Michal Shinnar known as a “purely false said purpose” as, by legislation, federal probationary workers can solely be eliminated for causes tied to efficiency or misconduct.

“We don’t let an company get round these congressional directives by simply terminating our probationary workers,” Shinnar instructed CBS, “and mass claiming it’s efficiency when it’s not.”