A former air traffic controller has detailed how the Obama administration “set in position” the growing issue that is now being seen regarding air travel and the recent spate of near misses and collisions that have occurred over the past month.
During an interview with Fox Business, Michael Pearson said that it will take a while to rebuild air traffic control back to an ideal standard because of the alleged continuous mishandling of new recruits and priorities being geared toward implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
“It’s gonna take a while, even by the proactive stance of Secretary Duffy and President Trump, and by the way, this slow moving trainwreck was set in position and set on course by the Obama administration, actually back in 2010,” Pearson said. “There was a three-year period where there was no hiring and ironically enough, they say there’s about 3,500 to 4,000 slots available. That’s just about the number that would have just come out of the FAA Academy … so this has been a festering problem.”
Pearson noted there would have to be a structural change within the FAA before anything can be set right.
“The other problems though are structural, and they’re gonna have to address those. Career bureaucrats inside the FAA will not move any faster regardless of who’s in position,” Pearson said.
In a January interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, Pearson suggested the Obama administration had shut down top training for air traffic control because it was “too white.”
“This is a preventable disaster. The system’s been under attack due to DEI and the FAA bowing to wokeness … since the Obama administration,” Pearson said. “The lack of staffing is directly attributable to the Obama administration terminating the lists of eligible, well-trained air traffic control stamens in 36 universities across the country in 2013 because they were too white.”
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According to Pearson, the FAA had given a blanket immunity to all air traffic controllers so officials and the public can be given skewed statistics.
“The FAA also at the same time, implemented an immunity program, so you think you’re seeing legitimate statics program, you’re not. In the old days, before 2010, the immunity program, if an air traffic controller got two airplanes too close too many times, they would be decertified and retrained,” Pearson said. “Now, they’re not. All they have to do within 48 hours of being notified that they’re being investigated for a potential separation error, they’re called operational errors in the FAA, the controller simply has to avail themselves of this program that gives them immunity. “
He further noted that the way the FAA operates, especially with the immunity, it makes retraining and ensuring air traffic controllers are at the top of their game, a difficult task.
“When I say immunity, I mean immunity. The FAA cannot retrain these people, if somebody has a repetitive instance of malfeasance or lack of competency, the FAA because of this immunity program, cannot rectify the situation,” Pearson said. “They have to basically allow the person to remain in the same position. It’s very, very difficult for the FAA to retrain a controller and its attributed, quite frankly, to the union and the FAA working together to basically use this program to gerrymander the statistics.”
