FAA Wistleblower Forced To Retire

Does there seem to be an inordinate amount of bad press for the FAA
these days?

http://www.local6.com/news/16144687/detail.html
Former Top FAA Official Raises Concerns About Safety In The Skies

POSTED: 12:00 am EDT May 3, 2008
UPDATED: 6:39 pm EDT May 3, 2008
ORLANDO, Fla. -- The Federal Aviation Administration's former top
man in Central Florida claims when he raised safety concerns about
unqualified mechanics, the government turned on him and
retaliated.

Gabe Bruno was removed as the FAA's top man in Orlando after he
questioned the priorities of higher ups, Local 6's Tony Pipitone
reported.

Bruno said he insisted the FAA track down and thoroughly retest
about 2,000 mechanics licensed through an outlaw school at
Sanford-Orlando International Airport. The school gave passing
grades to anybody willing to pay for them, Pipitone reported. ...

The issues he warned about included improperly trained mechanics,
FAA coziness with big airlines and a lack of effective maintenance
oversight, Pipitone reported.

Pipitone said Bruno's examples included the grounding of Southwest
and American Airline jets in recent weeks, crashes of a Chalk's
Ocean Airways seaplane in Miami in December 2005 and an Air
Midwest jet in Charlotte in January 2003.

"The FAA has been pounding it into the inspectors for the past
several years that the customers are the airlines, not the flying
public," Burno said.

In all, there were 41 dead, blamed ...