Trump Begins Firing FAA Air Traffic Control Staff Weeks After Fatal DC Plane Crash

The firings hit the agency on a busy air travel weekend.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has begun firing several hundred Federal Aviation Administration employees, upending staff on a busy air travel weekend and just weeks after a January fatal mid-air collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Probationary workers were targeted in late night emails Friday notifying them they had been fired, David Spero, president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union, said in a statement.

The impacted workers include personnel hired for FAA radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance, one air traffic controller told the Associated Press. The air traffic controller was not authorized to talk to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Spero said messages began arriving after 7 p.m. on Friday and continued late into the night. More might be notified over the long weekend or barred from entering FAA buildings on Tuesday, he said.

The employees were fired “without cause nor based on performance or conduct,” Spero said, and the emails were “from an ‘exec order’ Microsoft email address” — not a government email address.