TSA fires employee after reports she had previously been fired in Minnesota

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Transportation Security Administration Thursday fired an employee it had hired after she'd been fired from a top job in Minnesota for unprofessional conduct following the collapse of the Interstate 35-West bridge.

Sonia Pitt was fired from her $84,600-a-year Minnesota state job last November only to sign on to the TSA for $89,900 seven months later.

Pitt, 44, became a highly publicized object of scorn in Minneapolis last year when it was disclosed that she failed to return to Minnesota immediately after the tragedy. Instead, Pitt finished a conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and took an unauthorized trip to Washington.

She returned to Minnesota about 11 days after the August 1, 2007, collapse.