Flight instructor who appeared on CNN fired

TORONTO — A flight simulator instructor who wore casual clothes when he figured prominently in CNN’s coverage of the missing Malaysia airliner was fired after his boss accused him of dressing like a teenager and making Canadians “look very bad all over the world”.

uFly company owner Claudio Teixeira said he fired Mr Mitchell Casado yesterday (April 16) in part for refusing to dress professionally and for showing up late to his regular job.

Mr Casado’s relaxed style of jeans and plaid shirts attracted wide attention during CNN’s constant coverage of the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. CNN’s Martin Savidge and Mr Casado logged many hours reporting from the fake cockpit located at the company’s office in near the Toronto airport, which has a simulator that is the same model of the lost plane.

Mr Teixeira said Mr Casado did not come to work on Tuesday when customers had the simulator booked. “This is not the first time. He’s been warned before,” he told The Associated Press.

Mr Teixeira said he received many email complaints about the instructor’s way of dressing during the time he appeared on CNN.

“Even though I let him be on TV he shamed us Canadians and shamed my company with the way he was dressing like he was 15 years old,” he said. “People were complaining that it wasn’t professional at all ... If you go to any plane you don’t see them in shorts and sandals.”

Mr Casado declined to comment when reached by AP, saying “I’m not interested in talking to you.”

In a tweet earlier, Mr Casado wrote: “My boss had me training a new guy the last few days, and now that he can do my job, and CNN left, he fired me. That’s Ufly.”

CNN spokeswoman Bridget Leininger noted Mr Casado is an employee of uFLY, not CNN. She said CNN will not broadcast from the simulator today but may do so in the future.

Mr Savidge and Mr Casado spent 12-to18-hour days in the cockpit, using the machine to simulate what might happen under certain scenarios. They logged so much airtime reporting from the fake cockpit that the hashtag freemartinsavidge appeared on Twitter.

Although CNN has been criticised for its blanket coverage, its viewership rose 84 per cent last month over what it had been before the plane went missing, the Nielsen company said.

When the cameras were off, Mr Savidge took some informal flying lessons from Mr Casado.

Mr Teixeira called Mr Casado a nice guy and wished him luck but said a change had to be made. “I am the boss. I am the owner. I put in the money. It has to be my rules. If you don’t agree with them you have to find another job,” he said. He said he gave Mr Casado two weeks’ pay. AP