A Canadian flight instructor who figured prominently in CNN’s coverage of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane was fired Wednesday because his casual dress “shamed Canadians.”
The owner of uFly, the Canadian flight simulator business CNN linked up with for their coverage because it has a simulator of the same model as the missing jet, told the Associated Press that he fired Mitchell Casado for showing up late to his day job and making Canadians “look very bad all over the world” with his choice of dress.
The owner, Claudio Teixeira, said he received complaints about Casado’s signature plaid-shirt-and-jeans getup.
“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 told the AP. “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.”
Casado declined to comment to the AP, but he had more to say about the matter on Twitter:
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.
— Mitchell Casado (@MitchellCasado) April 16, 2014
Watch Casado in action with CNN’s Martin Savage here:
