'Scared to death': Fired FAA employee working on secret defense project has a warning for Americans

Former Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employee Charles Spitzer-Stadtlander said he was working on an FAA defense program when he was fired on Friday. Spizer-Stadtlander says Americans should be scared in the wake of several hundred FAA firings.

Charles, who was working on a missile defence program, said the government's huge cuts threaten national security, reports CNN. He was among the hundreds of thousands of people sacked by the Trump administration.

What fired FAA employee said

In an exclusive interview with CNN, Charles Spitzer-Stadtlander said people in America should be more worried about their safety following the massive cuts. The Department of Government Efficiency, or ‘DOGE’, headed up by Elon Musk, has recently ordered the sackings of a huge swathe of federal employees.


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Making a massive revelation during the interview, Charles said he was not at liberty to discuss the specifics of the project he had been working on before he was abruptly laid off on Friday. But he said it had been ‘incredibly important to national security’.

“I do think the American public does need to be concerned about, you know, not only my firing but also the firing of so many public safety and national security professionals at the FAA… I think that that is detrimental to national security," he was quoted as saying by the CNN.

“This is about protecting national security, and I’m scared to death,” Charles told the Associated press. “And the American public should be scared, too.” Charles said he only found out he had been fired when he headed off from an airbase in the middle of the night.

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He continued: “I’m just one of hundreds of thousands of federal employees who work way more than 40 hours a week, and it goes to show that the rumors that are being spread by the administration and DOGE that federal workers are just leeches on the government are incorrect.”

The department, DOGE, was created to discover and eliminate what the Trump administration has deemed to be wasteful government spending during the tenure of Joe Biden. But its access to Treasury records, as well as its inspection of various government agencies, has ignited widespread concern among critics over the increasing power of unelected Musk.

Trump fires FAA employees

The Trump administration has begun firing several hundred FAA employees, upending staff just weeks after the fatal midair collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport that killed 67. According to the Associated Press, one air traffic controller was handling both commercial airline and helicopter traffic at the busy airport.

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Just days before the collision, Trump had already fired all the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, a panel mandated by Congress that examines safety issues at airlines and airports.

In response to the layoffs, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said fewer than 400 FAA employees were fired and “zero air traffic controllers and critical safety personnel were let go.” But Spitzer-Stadtlander said he’s fearful about what happens next.

“This is about protecting national security, and I’m scared to death,” Spitzer-Stadtlander told the Associated Press. “And the American public should be scared, too.”