Federal aviation regulators issued an emergency order Monday grounding the helicopter tour company involved in a deadly New York crash after learning it had fired its operations director minutes after he had agreed to suspend flights during the investigation.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it suspected the firing was retaliation for a safety decision.

“The FAA is taking this action in part because after the company’s director of operations voluntarily shut down flights, he was fired,” acting Administrator Chris Rocheleau said on X.

New York Helicopter Tours’ sightseeing helicopter broke apart in midair and plunged into the Hudson River Thursday, killing five tourists from Spain and the pilot.

Rocheleau said the agency also began a comprehensive review of the company’s operations. The review is designed to determine whether an operator complies with regulations and effectively manages safety, and identifies hazards and risks.

The victims included passengers Agustin Escobar, 49, his wife, Mercè Camprubí Montal, 39, and their three children, Victor, 4, Mercedes, 8, and Agustin, 10. The pilot was Seankese Johnson, 36, a U.S. Navy veteran who received his commercial pilot’s license in 2023. The crash has renewed safety concerns about the popular sightseeing flights.

The company’s director of operations, Jason Costello, agreed on Sunday to voluntarily halt flights while the crash was being investigated. But 16 minutes after Costello sent an email to the FAA, the company’s chief executive officer sent a separate email to the agency saying he did not authorize the halt. The CEO, Michael Roth, also said Costello was no longer an employee, according to the FAA order.

“The immediate firing of the Director of Operations raises serious safety concerns because it appears Mr. Roth retaliated against Mr. Costello for making the safety decision to cease operations during the investigation,” read the document.

The FAA in its order said the company now lacks a required director of operations.

An email seeking comment was sent to Roth.

Also Monday, the National Transportation Safety Board said divers found key components of the Bell 206 L-4 helicopter as they wrapped up recovery efforts in the river. New York City police divers working with the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and Jersey City’s Office of Emergency Management recovered and secured the main rotor system and the tail rotor system, which are expected to provide clues about the crash.

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• In today’s CEO Daily: Geoff Colvin on the paralysis that sets in when the rules of the game keep changing. 
• The big story: Trump might give the automakers a break on tariffs.
• The markets: Moving up.
• Analyst notes from Oxford Economics on mass deportations, JPMorgan on recession, EY on stagflation, and Wedbush on Apple.
• Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.

Good morning. CEOs have long told Fortune that if they know the rules, they can play to win, but they can’t do it if the rules keep changing. So what on earth should they do now?

History can’t tell us. The past six days of tumultuous tariff whipsawing are unprecedented in U.S. history. It’s already hard to believe: Last Wednesday, President Trump imposed the heaviest tariffs the U.S. had levied since 1909, but only 12 hours later he “paused” them, leaving a universal 10% tariff, except on China, which faced a 145% tariff. Then late Friday night the administration announced it was reducing the Chinese mega-tariff, at least for smartphones (including Apple’s iPhones), computers, and other electronic equipment made in China. But two days later, it appeared those products would be subject to higher, unspecified tariffs. Trump posted, “Nobody is getting off the hook.” 

As of yesterday afternoon, Trump was considering tariff exemptions for imported vehicles and parts. Tomorrow, heaven knows. 

Business leaders desperately need to make significant responses to this environment, but how? The environment changes profoundly by the day. As KPMG’s U.S. supply chain leader Mary Rollman observes: “Almost every client I talk to has a war room. They get a team spun up, and the members have completely dropped their day job. Their job now is to watch the news and see what comes out next, and quickly be able to present to leadership.” However, most are not actually rearranging huge swaths of their business. By and large they are “working internally to model options and scenarios but not making major changes,” she says.

That stance is prudent but also a big problem. Every day that companies are frozen in place, the economy weakens. It’s especially true now because adapting to a radically new trade regime will be a long-term project. “These are not short-term decisions,” says Abe Eshkenazi, CEO of the Association for Supply Chain Management. “You can’t redirect the entire supply chain in six months. These are years in the making.” Yet companies so far can’t even start that project.

Another problem: The administration is rapidly losing its credibility with business leaders. The longer the trend carries on, the more likely it becomes that companies will respond to the new environment slowly and timidly. As a result, economic growth could slow, setting off a self-reinforcing downward spiral. 

Bottom line, companies are playing defense, not offense, and it’s hard to win that way. Frustratingly, that’s about all they can do. Maybe the best advice for business leaders right now? Watch closely, do little. The time for action will come.

More news below.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com

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It’s time for employers to wake up and smell the burnout. 

Responsibilities both in and out of the office are piling up for today’s workers, especially for the “sandwich generation,” defined as an adult population consisting largely of Millenials and Gen Xers who are taking care of both young children and aging parents at the same time. 

While employers recognize that burnout is a real issue, they underestimate how prevalent it is in their own workplaces. Approximately 84% of employers acknowledge that burnout plays a moderate to high role in employee retention, but they believe only 45% of their employees are at risk of burnout or are fully burnt out, according to a new report from Care.com. In reality, a much larger 69% of employees report moderate to high levels of burnout risk. The online marketplace surveyed 600 C-suite and HR executives for their “employer” results, as well as 1,000 workers (all earning wages and eligible for benefits) for the “employee” outcomes. 

One possible explanation for the perception gap is a lack of understanding which issues are causing burnout, such as caregiving. “The mental load [of caregiving] permeates the workplace; it goes just beyond the four walls of your home, especially in a more interconnected world,” Wes Burke, chief human resources officer at Care.com, tells Fortune. “[It] has an impact on attendance, productivity, and impacts overall quality of life for both the employee, [while also having] a lot of impact for the employer.” 

Though employers may struggle to recognize burnout in their own companies, they certainly understand the risk it poses for their bottom line. The majority of employers (80%) predict profitability would increase by 25% or more if no employees were at risk of burning out. “The cost of losing somebody [and finding] their replacement can be staggering, depending on the complexity of the role,” Burke says. 

A major contributor to the burnout that many workers feel is related to increasing return-to-office mandates, according to the same report. Initial analysis in the technology and finance industries shows increased turnover rates once companies implement return-to-office initiatives. 

Burke argues that this is partially due to misguided directives from leaders to go back to a pre-pandemic environment. “Five years is a long time, and people’s lives change dramatically,” he says. “Especially as you think about [how] kids are either older now, or you started a family, or you got a dog, and we’re all kind of out of practice.” He believes that all facets of an employee’s life should be incorporated into decisions coming from the top, not just their role in the company. 

“I’m hoping that more and more employers see the importance of what it means to really take care of the employee in this modern day and age,” he says. 

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