The administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, Michael Whitaker, resigned From his position on January 20 after having repeated requests from Elon Musk he left, leaving the agency without a confirmed leader in the Senate during a major crisis following the DC plane crash.
Musk called For the resignation of Whitaker in September after the head of the FAA proposed to enter it into the Musk Spacex company $ 600,000 In civil sanctions for having omitted to follow the license requirements during two launches in 2023. Whitaker told a panel of the congress at the time when the fines were “the only tool we have to obtain compliance on issues security “.
The CEO of technology and passionate about fascism Attacked Whitaker on several occasions of his X account, affirming in a post that the FAA “harassed SpaceX”. Musk also responded to an X poster which said that the FAA “should not exist” and attacked Whitaker for preventing its objective from colonizing Mars.
“The fundamental problem is that humanity will be forever confined to the earth unless there is a radical reform to the FAA!” Musk posted in a answer At the Australian house youtuber Marcus.
FAA administrators are generally used for a five-year term, but Whitaker only served for a year, replacing Trump’s named Stephen Dickson in 2022. Whitaker had been confirmed by a Biparisan 98-202 vote in October 2023.
Wednesday, an American commercial flight Airlines collided With an army helicopter above the Reagan national airport near Washington, DC, killing everyone on the two planes.
Since January 20, the head of the FAA is the assistant administrator of the FAA, Chris Rocheleau, who has only juror last weekgiving it a rigid learning curve early at work.
When Whitaker announced in December that he would resign, he told FAA staff in an email: “The United States is the safest and most complex airspace in the world, and it is cause of your commitment to flying public public. ” Wednesday’s disaster will certainly be raising questions about whether something went wrong in air security protocols and the agency’s disruptions contributed to the accident.