The vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board has been abruptly removed from his position, the White House confirmed Tuesday, a rare move that comes as the agency investigates more than 1,000 cases.
The Trump administration removed Alvin Brown a little more than a year after he was sworn in. The White House didn’t say why he was removed.
The decision comes as NTSB investigates nearly 1,250 active cases across the U.S., while supporting more than 160 foreign investigations, according to March testimony by NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy.
The investigations include the deadly midair collision between a passenger jet and Army helicopter in Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people in January and the medical transport plane that plummeted into a Philadelphia neighborhood in January, killing eight people.
Jeff Guzzetti, a former National Transportation Safety Board and FAA accident investigator, said he has never seen an administration remove a member of the board.
Board members have been known to stay on after their term is over if the administration hasn't appointed anyone yet and then they leave once the next administration selects someone, he said.
“That happens a lot over the years, but that’s normal and expected because you served your term and now it’s time for someone else to serve in there,” he said. "But this wasn’t that. This was just more abrupt and directly from the administration,n and I don’t know what the impetus is.”
By Tuesday evening, Brown’s photo and biography had already been removed from NTSB’s website.
The agency includes five board members who serve five year terms, according to the NTSB website. They are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The chairman and vice chairman are both designated by the president and serve for three years. By Tuesday evening, the website only showed four members of the board.
Brown was sworn in as a member of the board in April 2024 after being nominated by then-President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate to fill one of two vacancies. His term was expected to run through 2026, according to an NTSB press release at the time. He was the only Black member of the board.
He was the mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, from 2011 to 2015 and joined the board after serving as senior adviser for community infrastructure opportunities for the U.S. Department of Transportation, according to the release.
NTSB typically works on about 2,200 domestic and 450 foreign cases each year, according to Homendy. She said she expects “the number of cases annually to remain high and continue to increase in complexity.”
Associated Press writer Josh Funk contributed to this report.