ORLANDO, Fla. -- The Federal Aviation Administration's former top man in Central Florida claims when he raised safety concerns about unqualified mechanics, the government turned on him and retaliated.

Gabe Bruno was removed as the FAA's top man in Orlando after he questioned the priorities of higher ups, Local 6's Tony Pipitone reported.

Bruno said he insisted the FAA track down and thoroughly retest about 2,000 mechanics licensed through an outlaw school at Sanford-Orlando International Airport. The school gave passing grades to anybody willing to pay for them, Pipitone reported.

"So, what you have is a real potential for having unqualified people working on these air carrier aircraft," Burno said.

The issues he warned about included improperly trained mechanics, FAA coziness with big airlines and a lack of effective maintenance oversight, Pipitone reported.

Pipitone said Bruno's examples included the grounding of Southwest and American Airline jets in recent weeks, crashes of a Chalk's Ocean Airways seaplane in Miami in December 2005 and an Air Midwest jet in Charlotte in January 2003.

In all, there were 41 dead, blamed in part of the FAA's failure to oversee or pursue lapses in maintenance programs, Pipitone reported.

"The FAA has been pounding it into the inspectors for the past several years that the customers are the airlines, not the flying public," Burno said.

"Not the flying public?" Pipitone asked.

"Not the flying public," Bruno said.

"So, who are they serving?" Pipitone asked.

"That's a good question," Bruno said. "It doesn't seem like they're serving the American public that's traveling on the air carriers, does it?"

Bruno said the agency trumped up allegations that he played an improper role in an investigation of a pilot school where Bruno's son worked and removed him from his job.

"So, it takes the attention away from what the real subject matter is -- of showing that we have a real problem here and trying to categorize that person as some sort of a disgruntled employee."

However, Bruno has not gone quietly.

He fought and won against a conflict of interest allegation and retired on his own terms in January 2006 after 29 years.

"I'm trying to do this to do the best I can do to bring corrective actions about and to try to hopefully get the FAA in the place where it needs to be," Bruno said.

Bruno has testified to Congress and he is also assisting an investigation into whether the FAA is tracking down the mechanics who received certifications by simply paying for them.

The FAA said it has located all but a handful of the mechanics and that those it found still working on planes have been properly retested.

The FAA said it cannot comment on Bruno's removal from his job or his becoming a whistleblower because those are personnel matters.

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.