Take off, eh?
A Canadian flight simulator company canned a teacher who gained fame during TV coverage of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, saying he showed up late to his day job and “shamed Canadians” by dressing like a teenage slacker.
Claudio Teixeira, owner of uFly, said he fired Mitchell Casado on Wednesday in part for refusing to dress professionally and making Canadians “look very bad all over the world.”
Casado’s relaxed style of jeans and plaid shirts attracted wide attention during CNN’s constant coverage of the search for the missing flight.
The laid-back aviator logged hours of airtime reporting from the fake cockpit located at the company’s office near the Toronto airport, which has a simulator that is the same model as the lost plane.
Teixeira said Casado didn’t come to work Tuesday when customers had the simulator booked.
“This is not the first time. He’s been warned before,” he said.
Teixeira says he received many email complaints about the instructor’s way of dressing during the time he appeared on CNN.
Casado later tweeted the news of his dismissal.
“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,” he wrote.