Alvin Brown, vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), has been fired, multiple media outlets have reported, citing an anonymous White House official.
/Alvin-Brown.jpg?n=4074&tr=w-500%2Cfo-auto "Alvin Brown")
Alvin Brown
Brown, a Democrat who President Biden appointed to the NTSB in March 2024, was named vice chair in December.
A former mayor of Jacksonville, Fla., Brown previously was a senior advisor of infrastructure opportunities at the Department of Transportation.
Brown is no longer listed on the NTSB website, which now shows four remaining board members.
Travel Weekly has asked the White House for comment. The NTSB declined to comment.
The move continues President Trump's pattern of dismissing
board members of historically independent bipartisan agencies. The NTSB is run
by a board of five directors serving five-year terms that overlap presidential
administrations. They are appointed by the president and confirmed by the
Senate.
Among the three remaining NTSB board members, three were nominated by Trump during his first term, including chairwoman Jennifer Homendy. The fourth, J. Todd Inman, is Republican who was nominated by Biden.
Since beginning his second term, Trump has also removed Democratic members of the National Labor Relations Board, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Election Commission and others.
The NTSB's function is carrying out investigations of all civil aviation crashes in the U.S. as well as large crashes in other transport modes. The organization's most prominent current case is the Jan. 29 crash near Washington, D.C. of an American Airlines regional jet with an Army Blackhawk helicopter. The crash killed 67 people.