Todd Inman, a Republican member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) who was involved in the investigation of the midair collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army helicopter in Washington, D.C. last year that killed 67 people, was fired by the Trump administration last week. In a statement, released on Friday, Inman wrote, “To date, I have not received any reason for this termination.”
Inman, who was selected by President Biden for the NTSB in 2024, is the second member of the NTSB to have been removed in the last year. In May, President Trump fired Democrat Alvin Brown, the board’s vice chairman, who is suing to get his job back. (Brown was confirmed by the Senate by unanimous consent in March 2024.)
(Note: Brown’s replacement, John DeLeeuw, former Managing Director of Safety and Efficiency for American Airlines, was confirmed in February by the Senate 50-45, to serve until the end of the year.)
This raises the obvious question of what kind of thing the Trump admin might need the National Transportation Safety Board to do that a conscientious Board member would reject. https://t.co/MJ4VzFQDQV
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) March 9, 2026
According to CNN’s Pete Muntean, who covers aviation and transportation, “NTSB board members serve fixed terms and are rarely removed.”
David Cruz, Newsday‘s deputy politics editor, replied: “This is one of the more apolitical positions in federal government. What happened?”
Noted immigration lawyer Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council, also responded to Inman’s firing on social media by writing: “This raises the obvious question of what kind of thing the Trump admin might need the National Transportation Safety Board to do that a conscientious Board member would reject.”