As travel skyrockets to more than 87,000 commerical flights per day, the FAA must now hire at least 1000 air traffic controllers per year for the next ten years. Mandatory retirement is required for controllers at age 56.
But as FOX Business uncovered in a six month investigation, cheating on tests to get into the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) training program for controllers may be rampant. Instead of accreditation through the FAA’s College Training Initiative (CTI) schools, a murky personality test known as the ‘Biographical Questionnaire’ or BQ was introduced as the gateway of qualification for the coveted federal jobs in late 2013.
As a result, a diverse group of 3000 men and women, including veterans of military service find themselves thousands of dollars in debt with their aviation degrees. They have been tossed away as candidates for their dream job.
House Aviation subcommittee chairman Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ) is demanding answers from the FAA telling FOX Business. “We will demand answers to questions that were raised by your investigation. We want the safest air system in the world.”
FOX Business found evidence that new ATC recruits may have cheated on the BQ which includes questions like: “The number of different high school sports I participated in was A) 4 or more…B) 3…C) 2…D) 1…E) Didn’t play sports.
