SOME OF THE 400 JOBS THAT WERE CUT AT THE FAA HELPED SUPPORT AIR SAFETY, A UNION SAYS

President Donald Trump's administration has said no one at the Federal Aviation Administration with a "critical safety" position has been fired as it cuts the federal workforce, but some FAA jobs that were eliminated had direct roles in supporting safety inspectors and airport operations, according to their union and former employees.

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About 400 personnel were let go starting Friday. There is still not a complete picture of who was fired, but the union representing about 130 of them said the staffers included aviation safety assistants, maintenance mechanics and nautical information specialists.

They are the types of workers tasked with helping aircraft safety inspectors, repairing air traffic control facilities and updating digital maps that pilots use in flight, such as making any changes that the FAA may direct for airplanes flying in Washington airspace following last month's fatal midair collision.

FAA Administrator Sean Duffy said over the weekend that no air traffic controllers or critical safety personnel were cut.

"We protected roles that are critical to safety," Department of Transportation spokesperson Halee Dobbins said Wednesday. "On the layoffs, these were probationary employees — meaning they had only been at the FAA for less than two years, represented less than 1% of FAA's more than 45,000 employees."

Philip Mann, a former FAA certified technician, said whether someone's position is defined as "critical to safety" can come down to whether that person is authorized to perform a certified inspection of the equipment being worked on.

While those who were fired were not those doing those inspections, they supported that work.

"It's a stretch, but that is usually where they can draw a line to say, 'If you can certify stuff, then you have a safety critical job. And if you don't certify stuff, you don't have a safety critical job," Mann said.

But the loss of those personnel "is going to have long-term safety implications - just work that simply can't be done," he said.