1,000 Qualified Trainees Rejected Over ‘Biographical Assessment’?

Michael Pearson, the lead lawyer in a class-action lawsuit against the FAA, says that 1,000 qualified air traffic control trainees were rejected in 2013 by the agency because of the sudden implementation of DEI hiring targets, leading to the present-day nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers.

Pearson, a former air traffic controller and trainer himself, explained that his clients completed all of their training at FAA-approved facilities and then went into a direct hiring pool for controllers. This was standard practice at that time.

He said within months of finishing their training the FAA informed them they would need to pass a new “biographical assessment” that, he claimed, awarded extra points to people “with no aviation experience.”

Pearson asserts that, “The FAA basically decided the students were too white and the schools too elite, so in 2013 knocked them off the preferred hiring list they had trained and worked hard to get onto — all because of their race.”

According to Pearson, 95% of those previously qualified candidates he is representing, then failed the biographical assessment questionnaire, or a personality test he says, and were screened out.

“They had the training and the passion and they were ready to be hired,” he said.

The recent high-profile aviation accidents have focused again on the air traffic control issues. In the case of the Reagan National Airport mid-air collision, the tower had just 19 of the recommended 30 controllers on staff. Currently there are 10,800 controllers nationwide but it is estimated that 14,600 are needed to meet the staffing needs, according to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

Pearson noted that in addition to the biographical assessment, a four-year hiring freeze was placed on controllers as DEI policies were implemented.

Pearson stated, “The FAA engaged in staffing suicide. It takes two to five years to train as an air traffic controller and a long time to get these people through. Losing them meant a gaping hole was left in the ATC talent pool. The FAA, because of DEI policies, stopped hiring for three to four years and that directly correlates to the lack of staffing, and controllers being overworked and getting fatigued and burned out.”

The biographical assessment was removed as a screening tool in 2018, according to the FAA.

FMI:  www.faa.gov/