Missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: Flight simulator instructor who appeared extensively in TV coverage fired ‘for dressing like a teenager’
Mitchell Casado’s company said he had ‘made Canadians look bad all over the world’
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Your support makes all the difference.A flight simulator instructor who helped with coverage of the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has been fired after he was deemed to have dressed too casually during TV appearances.
Mitchell Casado and the Canadian company uFly featured extensively in CNN’s reporting on the search, as its fake cockpit near Toronto airport has a simulator that is the same model as the lost Boeing 777.
The international broadcaster’s Martin Savidge logged so many hours reporting from within the simulator that the hashtag “freemartinsavidge” started trending on Twitter.
But uFly owner Claudio Teixeira said the instructor’s failure to dress professionally reflected badly on the company and on Canada in general.
He said he had received many email complaints about Mr Casado’s relaxed style of jeans and plaid shirts, making Canadians “look very bad all over the world”.
“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 Teixeira added that the instructor also failed to turn up at work on Tuesday when customers had the simulator booked. “This is not the first time. He's been warned before,” he said.
“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, adding that Mr Casado has been given two-weeks’ pay.
Though Mr Casado said he didn’t want to talk to reporters about the news, he posted a message on Twitter saying: “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.”
A spokesperson for CNN said Mr Casado is an employee of uFly, not the broadcaster. She said CNN would not report from the simulator this week but may do so in the future.
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