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The Trump Administration has begun firing hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration employees who maintain critical air traffic control infrastructure, reports CNN<\/a>.\u00a0The firings, which began late Friday night, come as Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX has been tapped<\/a> to help create a new air traffic control system.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not yet clear how many workers were fired, but the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) union says they hit probationary workers, or new hires on a trial period. The workers were not air traffic controllers, who are in short supply due to staffing shortages that have gone on for decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n The workers received late night emails Friday telling them they\u2019d been fired, according to David Spero, president of the PASS union. The workers include people who were hired for FAA radar, landing, and navigational aid maintenance, according to an air traffic controller who spoke to the Associated Press <\/a>on the condition of anonymity.\u00a0<\/p>\n Spero noted the employees were fired \u201cwithout cause nor based on performance or conduct.\u201d The emails didn\u2019t come from a government email address; they came from \u201can \u2018exec order Microsoft email address.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Congress has demanded the FAA tackle a pattern of near-misses and modernize critical systems for years, and experts say the agency has failed to act on known issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n The news comes just weeks after a January fatal mid-air collision<\/a> at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in D.C. where one controller was handling both helicopter and commercial airline traffic at the busy airport. Several other crashes<\/a> have occurred since.\u00a0<\/p>\n Days after the Washington D.C. crash in January, Musk wrote on X<\/a> that Trump gave his DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) team approval to \u201cmake rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Neither Musk nor Trump has shared what those safety upgrades would be.\u00a0<\/p>\n Members of Musk\u2019s SpaceX team are visiting the Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Virginia on Monday to \u201cget a firsthand look at the current system, learn what air traffic controllers like and dislike about their current tools, and envision how we can make a new, better, modern and safer system,\u201d wrote Sean Duffy, Secretary of the Department of Transportation, in a post on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n