Trump admin removes Biden-era transportation safety board vice chair

The Trump administration has removed the vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, who was appointed to the role in the waning days of the Biden administration, Fox News Digital learned. 

The White House removed Alvin Brown from the National Transportation Safety Board, a White House official confirmed to Fox News Digital Tuesday morning. Brown had served on the five-person safety panel since March 2024, before President Joe Biden appointed him as vice chair of the board in December 2024 – one month before President Donald Trump’s inauguration. 

The National Transportation Safety Board is an independent government agency charged with investigating major transportation accidents, such as plane crashes, and crafting safety guidance to prevent accidents. 

Brown, a Democrat, was the first Black mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, serving from 2011 to 2015, before serving as senior advisor for Community Infrastructure Opportunities for the U.S. Department of Transportation in 2022, according to his biography. 

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Alvin Brown, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, attends an investigative hearing. Brown was removed from his role in May 2025. (Getty Images)

The National Transportation Safety Board’s website, as of Tuesday morning, lists four members, all of whom were appointed by Trump either during his first or second administration. They are Chair ​​​​​​​​​​​​Jennifer L. Homendy, ​​​Michael Graham, ​​Thomas B. Chapman and ​​​J. Todd Inman. 

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The Trump administration was rocked by a plane crash on Jan. 29 near the nation’s capital, when 67 people were killed after an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger plane collided near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. That accident was followed by other high-profile plane crashes. 

President Donald Trump’s administration removed the Biden-era National Transportation Safety Board Vice Chair Alvin Brown. (Getty Images)

Air travel was hit with delays in recent days, most notably at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport, when air traffic controllers briefly lost communication with planes. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy joined Fox News’ Laura Ingraham Monday evening, where he addressed the delays and said he plans to overhaul and “radically transform” America’s air traffic control system.

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“We’re going to build a brand-new air traffic control system – from new telecom, to new radars, to new infrastructure. We’re bringing on new air traffic controllers,” he said. “This has been a problem in the decades coming, and we’re going to fix it.”

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“When you have an incident like this, you want to make sure that people are safe,” he added, referring to the delays in Newark. “And so, you just have less departures out of the airport until we feel comfortable and safe that the system isn’t going to go down again.”